Roots of Betrayal: The Ethics of Christine Quinn - Copyright 2013 by Louis Flores - Uncorrected Proof Not For Sale - Excerpt

UNCORRECTED
PROOF NOT FOR SALE VOLUME I, II, III, AND IV EXCERPT

ROOTS OF BETRAYAL : THE ETHICS OF CHRISTINE QUINN 2013 BY LOUIS FLORES ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
I have heretofore likewise mentioned the necessity of a large and equal representation ; and there is no political matter which more deserves our attention. A small number of electors, or a small number of representatives, are equally dangerous. But if the number of the representatives be not only small, but unequal, the danger is increased. Thomas Paine, Common Sense
Roots of Betrayal : The Ethics of Christine Quinn 2013 by Louis Flores. All Rights Reserved.
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Notes
Many people chose not to coperate with this book. Christine Quinn, through one of her political aides, Alexandra Nudelman, ended communication. A few months before he died, Ed Kochs staff declined a request for an interview. Sen. Tom Duane s office, before he stepped down, did not return an e-mail. But Sen. Duane did, through DNAinfo.com, dismiss critics of Speaker Quinn as a small fringe group of people that try to demand attention.1 Many progressive LGBT activists also did not agree to interviews for fear of retaliation by Speaker Quinn. Much of the research collected for this book is public record, and, where possible, footnotes to Web site sources are provided on the Scribd link for this book project. The intention of this book project is to provide an overview of Speaker Quinns ethics. The research and analysis that is provided herein is to help voters become aware of the direction that Speaker Quinn first promised to take us and the direction in which we have been actually heading under her leadership. Courtesy titles are used where appropriate. Because of the constant repetition of Speaker Quinns and (sometimes) former Sen. Tom Duanes names, they may be referred to by their first names more often than naught. The use of courtesy titles would have otherwise stilted the narrative, and in no way should the lack of use of courtesy titles be interpreted to mean anything else.
1 http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20130109/new-york-city/christine-quinn-foes-prepare-campaign-spoil-
her-mayoral-hopes
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Prologue
On a frigid February day in 2003, New Yorkers would wake up to the harsh realities of a police state. The Republican Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, and the militarized NYPD Commissioner, Raymond Kelly, had denied citizens the right to participate in a protest march that organisers had planned to denounce the impending U.S. invasion of Iraq. Instead, the protest would take the form of a rally near a stage at East 51st Street and First Avenue in Manhattan. But the turn-out was so large that, according to The New York Times, crowds filled First Avenue from 49th Street to 72nd Street and spilled over into side streets and to Second, Third and Lexington Avenues, where thousands more were halted at police barricades, far from the sights and sounds of the demonstration.2 The protest in New York City was part of a world-wide demonstration taking place on Saturday, February 15, in opposition to President George W. Bushs eventual invasion of Iraq. Many people believed that President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld were determined to invade Iraq, regardless of the outcome of any weapons inspections, and New Yorkers were moved to participate in the massive rally on February 15 as a way to express their dissent with the Bush administrations war plans. New Yorkers thought that since they lived in New York City, arguably the most progressive city in the United States, then, for them, showing up at the February 15 anti-war rally would be easy. But they would be wrong.
2 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/16/nyregion/threats-and-responses-overview-from-new-york-to-
melbourne-cries-for-peace.html
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Police put up metal barricades along the East Side avenues in Midtown Manhattan. Horse-mounted police were deployed. Some said that Manhattan-bound subway trains from Queens stopped running that afternoon, so that the mayor and police could prevent more people from getting to the demonstration. Those, who made it, were locked inside metal barricades and were forced to stand in tight spaces in subfreezing temperatures with no room to move to keep warm. Days before, everybody had seen Secretary of State Colin Powell deliver an alarming presentation at the United Nations, showing his collection of satellite photos.3 New Yorkers thought that the February 15 rally would be an effective way to express their opposition to the army of state actors being dispatched to clear the way for the impending war. But the organizing of the February 15 rally was being hobbled at every turn by each of Mayor Bloomberg, Commissioner Kelly, and the federal courts. How could it come to be that, right here in New York City, the proud beacon of progressive values, an anti-war protest that reflected such a large proportion of the public opinion be thwarted ? Was there no public official in New York City, who understood the importance and role of citizens participation in their own governance, in direct democracy ? Someone, who could stand up and fight for the right of the people to determine what their government is allowed to do ?

3 http://www.un.org/apps/news/storyAr.asp?NewsID=6079&Cr=iraq&Cr1=inspect
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Chapter 1
When Christine Quinn won a special election in February 1999 to represent Manhattan District 3 in the New York City Council, New York was in an in-between place. It was transitioning from being the peoples capital city -- with edge and sizzle -- to becoming the gentrified land of luxury -- increasingly gated by the invisible hands of income and wealth requirements. This district had been known for supporting progressive politics, and, given Christines ideology and her reputation as a lesbian activist known for supporting left-wing causes,4 all she had to do was to stay true to her roots, and there was going to be no way that she could mess this up. There was a lot riding on her career. People had hitched so much symbolism, so much meaning, to her success. It was as if she had become the chosen one, the politician that was going to stand up and represent by proxy the entire LGBT community in New York City. Many activists, who started out as grassroots community organizers, dreamed of changing the world. And here was Christine, being one of the fortunate activists to have found an opportunity to take her sensibilities about activism into the inside of politics. Some activists in Christines community would stay true to their cause, whilst others would sell out. Heres an overview of the arc of the ethics that Christines activism would take, which would nominally start out as a heros journey, before it would ultimately morph into something else. Christine was lucky to have found a mentor in the then-newly-elected New York State Senator Tom Duane. Sen. Duane had just vacated the very City Council
4 http://articles.nydailynews.com/1999-02-20/entertainment/18092136_1_christine-quinn-gay-rights-lesbian-
anti-violence-project
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seat, which Christine had won in a special election, and she owed everything to him. One year after Christine had graduated from college, she was in New York City working on behalf of tenants rights alongside a controversial activist named Michael McKee.5 Mr. McKee would later be criticized for being more about flash than about results.6 Nonetheless, in a very short time, Christine would come to the attention of LGBT activists in Manhattan, even though, in her early years, Christine was living in the closet.7 In almost no time, Christine jumped from being a tenants rights activist with the Housing Justice Campaign in 19898 to serving as Sen. Duanes campaign manager in 1991, when he was first running for the City Council seat that would eventually become her own.9 Christines work as a campaign manager helped Christine meet with other community organizers, such as Jane Wood, who was a tenant organizer respected for her commitment to grassroots activism. Christine used all of her activist connections to build support for Mr. Duanes 1991 political campaign. After he won the election, Christine naturally took the job as Mr. Duanes chief-of-staff at the City Council. In those early years, Christine kept following her passion : meeting and working for more and more politicians. In 1992, Christines networking would lead her to meet a Democratic campaign adviser, Emily Giske, in whom Christine would find a powerful friend and political ally.10 Ever since Harvey Milk inspired the LGBT community with his courageous message of hope in the face of tragedy, the thought among some community-
5 http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2012/10/23/quinn-skips-hearing-on-chelsea-market-expansion/ 6 http://christinequinn.com/content/quinns-fake-tenant-credentials-phony-mckees 7 http://observer.com/1999/06/christine-quinn-sets-it-straight-im-a-lesbian-yup-100-percent/ 8 http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2012/10/23/quinn-skips-hearing-on-chelsea-market-expansion/ 9 http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/04/02/120402fa_fact_mead 10 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/nyregion/for-speaker-quinn-mayor-race-will-test-alliance-with-
lobbyist.html
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organizing activists was that if more LGBT politicians could be elected, then progress could be made by an elected official running an inside strategy concurrently with activists running an outside strategy. If more LGBT politicians could be symbolically elected to public office, then real equality could finally be legislated or officiated. Activism was intense and sometimes messy work, especially for activists who use direct action or civil disobedience. For an intense social movement, like the one for AIDS treatment and social services, if an activist burned out or turned out to be ineffective, then there was always somebody else ready to take his or her place, or a new working group or an entirely new organization could be formed ; activists were autonomous like that. But once an activist got elected to a political office, that one politician would be an elected official for the term of their office, and that official would benefit from incumbency privileges. The only chance to replace that elected official would be through an election. Once you were stuck with an immovable politician, the possibility of social change would then depend on influencing electoral politics. Looking back, it becomes clear that after a few years of having worked as chief-of-staff under then Councilmember Duane, Christine had begun to be groomed for her own symbolic run for political office. In 1996, Christine began to wade out on her own, by assuming the leadership position at an important LGBT nonprofit agency, the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project (AVP). Her time at AVP would help Christine solidify a working relationship with a very accomplished
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activist from ACT UP named Barbara Hughes.11 Ms. Hughess community organizing and activism skills would inspire and inform Christines worldview during this time. Indeed, Christine and then Councilmember Duane had been involved in ACT UP. Many years later, long after Christine had succeeded in consolidating power, she would always look back to Ms. Hughes as a guidepost for what their shared passion for activism had once meant to Christine. Ms. Hughes was somebody, who actually followed through on the altruism of her activism, and this resonated with Christine in her early years in public office. This is how Christine spoke of Ms. Hughes during an interview many years later, after Christine had reached a milestone in her efforts to achieve power : Shes somebody who gave up a job where she couldve made a lot of money and dedicated all parts of her life to improving the lot of others. And if I can keep the idea she kept in mind, while Im speaker, I think Ill have done a very good job.12 Ms. Hughes was also somebody, who would become a critical, early defender of Christines career. At every opportunity, in those early years, Christine was meeting and working with people, who would either serve as mentors or cheerleaders. People really wanted to believe that Christine was going to be the real deal : a community activist-organizer, who was going to make the transition into a powerholder -- and stay true to her activist roots. How would Christine handle this responsibility ? Christine had graduated from being a political activist to a community organizer to political aide to the executive director of an agency to a councilmember. She had participated in rallies, protests, and civil disobedience and now was
11 http://www.treatmentactiongroup.org/barbara-hughes 12 http://www.projectrenewal.org/downloads/WNBC%20Barbara%20Hughes%20-%20Jan%2006.pdf
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deliberately transitioning from an outside, grassroots strategy to an inside, powerholder strategy. The promise that Christine was making was that if she could rise to power, then she would become a beacon of top-down support for bottom-up community empowerment -- that she could fulfill on the progressive political sensibilities of New Yorkers. She was sold as being one of us, from an old-time Irish tradition of politically-minded progressive idealists, one person said. This was the shiny wrapping in which Christine was being packaged. One of Christines self-described early successes was shrouded in some controversy. While she was executive director of AVP, Christine claimed to have not only expanded its range of programs and services, but also increased awareness of bias crimes nationwide.13 The backchannel talk was that Christine reorganized the agency by purging the staff, one person said. And another person said that what Christine did was to professionalize the agency in order to qualify for grants and so on. No case notes were kept, one source said, offering one example of what Christine was confronting, and Christines changes in staff were part of her efforts to improve the agency. Again, whenever people were approached to speak about Christines record, there was a sensibility expressed about being the target of retaliation from Christine. Those, who would speak, requested anonymity. But many people would refuse to speak at all. Notwithstanding the backchannel rationalizations, Christine would be criticized years later for the way she dismissed the staff of AVP during the agencys

13 http://christinequinn.tripod.com/bio.htm
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reorganization, which would cast doubt on the storyline about Christines reforms.14
15 Christine needed swift success at AVP in order to parlay that gig into a greater
personal opportunity. But Christine was courting trouble by claiming to need to professionalize AVP. Christine was implying that the agency needed improvement when she took over, which was far from the truth. And here, in the tale of what happened at AVP, was the beginning of what would come to be described as a manufactured early success for Christine, which needed to happen in order to begin to lay the groundwork for a myth about Christine. Christines term at AVP was critical to her career. Christine would understand at AVP the tremendous pressure caused by nonprofit fund raising. Nonprofits faced outsized influence from their benefactors and the members of the board of directors, who were responsible for raising money. The pressure by one board member is allegedly what would lead Christine his young lover, multiple sources said. This hiring, in connection with Christines purging of the expert staff at AVP, would lead to a great controversy among LGBT activists. But AVP didnt just have paid staff, it also had trained volunteers, who answered the hotlines, because AVP was providing critical services to LGBT victims of violence and hate crimes. The disruption caused by Christines changes to AVPs staff was having an impact on the morale of those who remained working and volunteering there, and among the activist community, who appreciated the valuable role of AVP to the public and personal safety of LGBT New Yorkers.
14 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/nyregion/for-speaker-quinn-mayor-race-will-test-alliance-with-
lobbyist.html?comments#permid=19 15 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/26/nyregion/in-private-quinn-displays-a-volatile- side.html?comments#permid=279
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At this very early point in Christines career, LGBT activists in Chelsea and Greenwich Village began to question her judgment. It wasnt that she was trying to add her own stamp to AVP, but that she was jamming the agencys smooth continuity. AVP did critical work, and Christine was disrupting it. Matt Foreman, Christines predecessor at AVP, was described by more than one person as being very accomplished, and he has subsequently had an impeccable and principled record of successfully managing leadership roles at many LGBT agencies. Indeed, after his impressive record at AVP, Mr. Foreman went on to serve as the executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda and then of the National Gay and Lesbian Tax Force (NGLTF). Mr. Foreman was such a successful nonprofit executive that he more than doubled the budget at the NGLTF during his five-year term.16 Not only that, but Mr. Foreman was a founding member of Heritage of Pride, the group under which the LGBT Pride events are organized in New York City.17 Under Mr. Foreman, AVP formed working relationships with ACT UP and Queer Nation to bring about necessary reforms, to the point where Mr. Foreman engaged in civil disobedience.18 Activists knew and trusted Mr. Foreman, they knew he was real, and these activists began to see how Christines efforts to fluff her track record were having the effect of throwing Mr. Foreman, who was highly respected in the LGBT community, under the bus. The myth being propagated as a result of Christines changes was that she was transforming AVP from an amateur-run, volunteer-based organization into a
16 http://thetaskforce.org/press/releases/PR_012308 17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Foreman_(activist) 18 http://www.outweek.net/pdfs/ow_104.pdf
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professionalized agency. This myth contradicted the pioneering and extensive same- sex anti-violence counseling, anti-bias awareness training, and community outreach work being done by existing staff members, such as Kris Drumm and Maura Bairley, among others. Not only that, but Mr. Foreman oversaw AVPs role in making the NYPD more sensitive to bias violence against the LGBT community. There were remarkable gains being made by AVP under Mr. Foreman, and, before him, under his predecessor, David Wertheimer. This was during a time when not only homophobia was increasingly leading to violence, but phobia about HIV/AIDS was also triggering a backlash against the LGBT community.19 All the talk from Christine and her team about her need to professionalize AVP was unfairly casting aspersions upon the good name of Mr. Foreman and others. It was uncomfortable but necessary for Mr. Foreman, Mr. Wertheimer, and some of AVPs former associates to speak out, sometimes through letters to the editor of LGBT publications which no longer exist, to clarify AVPs successes prior to Christines arrival. AVP had been a daring and effective agency since its inception. But the desperate energy with which Christine was trying to force immediate success at AVP, unfortunately, was playing out publicly, and her management style was rubbing people the wrong way, some observed. This episode at AVP would begin to sow the seeds of suspicion and mistrust among activist of Christines motivations and machinations. In spite of efforts to correct the misconception that Christine was espousing, her myth would go henceforth : Christine purged the staff and instituted her own changes at AVP, and she brandished these changes as
19 http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/03/weekinreview/ideas-and-trends-are-homosexuals-facing-an-ever-
more-hostile-world.html
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necessary in order to lead to success. This, and her prolific photo opportunities and media sound bites during her tenure at AVP, helped Christine to propagate her myth as a successful leader. Christines post at AVP had earned her a lot of press in the major daily newspapers, especially The New York Daily News and The New York Times. Christine was even quoted in a lengthy analytical article in The Washington Post about the Andrew Cunanan case. Christine had cordinated the dissemination of wanted fliers, and she launched the first reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the notorious spree killer. This was before he died on a houseboat in Miami Beach.20 Fernando Carreira, the man credited with discovering Andrew Cunanans hideout on a Miami Beach houseboat, traveled to New York to collect the AVP reward offered by Christine.21 Such was the public role that she made for herself : a self-proclaimed media spokesperson on behalf of the LGBT community. Christines reward was out of the realm of the AVPs budget, so the agency was only able to partially pay Mr. Carreira the reward on the day of his photo op with Christine. After a gay man was attacked at a New York City sex club in February 1998, there was Christine, issuing a public warning in the pages of The New York Times to patrons of gay sex clubs.22 This was Christine, back when she was willing to speak the truth about issues facing the LGBT community, no matter how shocking she may have appeared to the average sensibilities of New Yorkers. This was when Christine
20 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/cunanan/stories/manhunt.htm 21 http://www.nytimes.com/1997/07/29/nyregion/cunanan-reward-paid-and-mayor-is-chided.html 22 http://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/15/nyregion/patrons-of-gay-sex-club-report-attacks-by-a-man-with-a-
knife.html
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was seemingly reaching, on our behalf and from a place of goodwill, for fairness -- acts that would make her appear like she cared for the LGBT community. Over time, this side of Christine would become more and more one-dimensional and predictable. She was now ready to run for public office herself, and she did so with Sen. Duanes blessing and support. To this day, Sen. Duanes Wikipedia entry, most likely written with Sen. Duanes blessing, proudly boasts about how Christine succeeded him on the City Council.23 He was proud of her -- all of her. Since Sen. Duane was openly gay and Christine had finally become openly lesbian, they had in common the experience of being trailblazers by coming out of the LGBT community and entering the dog-eat-dog world of New York City politics. Christines rise to power came in the 1990s -- a time in New York City when so many gay men had already died from AIDS and so many New Yorkers had spent over a decade being pulled into the radical, grassroots activism of ACT UP and other affinity groups. The LGBT community was being decimated by HIV/AIDS, and so many leaders had been lost to death or to the burn-out from the long-term toll of sustained, herculean activism. As a community, LGBT New Yorkers had been confronting the AIDS pandemic, the death toll, the discrimination, the bias-based violence, as well as the community organizing, political protests, and healthcare activism to demand access to newer, more effective medical treatments, housing, and social services. The unique forces of this once-in-a-lifetime challenge created opportunities for Sen. Duane and Christine to come into power. Once an activist had lived through the horror of what a loved ones AIDS death looked like, there was no
23 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Duane
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more tragic argument for urgency. During this busy time, the political careers of Sen. Duane and Christine were political experiments : efforts by the LGBT community to legislate change from the inside under the shadow of a time some would describe as a holocaust. Sen. Duane and Christine were seen, at least in part, as the communitys demand for political power and in response to what everybody came to see as the inaction by former Mayor Ed Koch during the AIDS pandemic. Under then Councilmember Duane, Christine had learned a lot. As his chief- of-staff, she got to work on LGBT issues. She got sneak peeks at how county leaders functioned in the political system, how important it was to impose discipline within the political party, how the political parties use incentives to reward, as well as disincentives to punish, members in an effort to exert that discipline, how many community needs had to be run through the standard legislative procedure, no matter how urgent they seemed to be, and how you had to pick your political battles. When then Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was proposing to shut down the New York City Division of AIDS Services, Christine helped then Councilmember Duane in his efforts to stop the mayors extremist cuts to the LGBT community. Activists put pressure on the outside, and then Councilmember Duane and Christine were there to act on the inside. That was the model of social, legal, and economic change that they had envisioned. They were there to show that there were times you had to buck the system to stand up for what you believed. That was the old Christine. In Christines first special election, she ran on a left-leaning platform of improving education, parks, and the environment ; fighting bias crime; and fighting
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for lesbian and gay rights, tenant organizing, and womens issues.24 (Even though by the early 1990s, a sensibility had already begun around the country to be expressly inclusive of bisexuals and transgenders, that sensibility had not yet made it into Christines 1999 campaign.) Many of the credits in her 1999 campaign biography reflected accomplishments or work that she did in her capacity as then Councilmember Duanes chief-of-staff.25 Politics wasnt for the humble, but for the peremtory. Christine was nothing if not aspirational and ambitious. Some element of that she perhaps got from her father. Christines father, Larry, was a union representative. Mr. Quinn, a one-time union steward, is Ms. Quinns link to and tutor in the old machine-style politics of relationship-building and favor-trading, is how The New York Times would once describe him.26 Union activism was meant to help workers achieve living wages, safe working conditions, and fair benefits from their employers. But here, Mr. Quinn had learned the best from his own union activism, and apparently he was helping to counsel Christine about how to use the tools of union organizing to augment Christines activism skills to further Christines career. Kind of like how, in the early years, Hillary and Bill Clinton were described as a two-for-one pair, so, too, could Christine and Larry Quinn be seen through a similar prism. Daughter and father came as a package deal. Larry worked with Christine on then Councilmember Duanes 1991 campaign, and the two would work on campaigns to come.

24 http://christinequinn.tripod.com/priorities.htm 25 http://christinequinn.tripod.com/bio.htm 26 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/19/nyregion/19quinn.html
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Activists, union officials, and advocates for progressive ideals shared an urgency for social, legal, and economic reforms that government officials on the inside did not share. There was a disconnect that would always be the source of friction. As insiders, elected officials viewed the process of running the governments affairs as transactional. There was a business as usual tone to it. Legislation had to be sponsored. Councilmembers had to be found to pass legislation, not because it was right, but because it was about the trading of support and the imposition of discipline that allowed each councilmember to appear to be productive. If Councilmember A supported Councilmember Bs legislative agenda, then Councilmember B became obligated to help Councilmember As legislative agenda. There might be a few random acts of generosity by councilmembers, but, mainly, there were situational calculations being made and political indebtedness being traded. When she was only former Councilmember Duanes political aide, Christine did not have the authority to make final decisions for Councilmember Duanes office -- that was his responsibility. But she got to see the inner workings of the City Council. And she got to develop her own connections with community groups. And she learned about fundraising. And when it came time for her to run for office, Christine was seen by some to be trying to take credit for accomplishments as if she was already the politician in charge. To look at Christines record as a leader, though, one would need to examine the journey she would take on her own, and to disconnect her record from that of Sen. Duane.
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The election that Christine won, which would put her into the New York City Council, took place on Tuesday, February 16, 1999. Christine ran a campaign that appeared to be a grassroots effort. But only four days after her first successful Election Day, The New York Daily News was already describing Christine as savvy and possibly even a sellout.28 Before she was elected to City Council, Christine had served as the executive director of AVP, which put her in a position to be constantly interviewed for news stories about violence against LGBT New Yorkers. Her visibility at AVP had earned her a spot on a civic panel when, in 1997, Christine was appointed by Mayor Rudy Giuliani to a task force on police brutality. This task force, first charged with improving police-community relations,29 was formed by Mayor Giuliani after Abner Louima was brutalized by police officers in a bathroom at a Brooklyn police station.30 The task force stopped being referred to as a police-community relations panel and began to be referred to as a police brutality task force after the Giuliani administration was criticized for not taking seriously the aggressive tactics of the police department. Christine opened herself to the early criticism in The New York Daily News article, because she was making the same weak recommendations for seemingly nominal reforms of the NYPD as were being made by Staten Island Borough President Guy Molinari, a controversial Republican member of the task force. Borough President Molinari had angered the LGBT community, because he
28 http://articles.nydailynews.com/1999-02-20/entertainment/18092136_1_christine-quinn-gay-rights-
lesbian-anti-violence-project 29 http://articles.nydailynews.com/1997-08-20/news/18053338_1_louima-case-mayor-giuliani-ruth-messinger 30 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abner_Louima
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had opposed a political campaign based on the candidates sexual orientation.31 Here was a homophobic member on the task force with Christine, but Christine worked along side Borough President Molinari as if his discrimination was not an issue. On top of that, the police brutality reforms that Christine recommended, when she sided along with Borough President Molinari in what came to be known as the majority report, included, among other things, increasing pay for police officers, requiring new cops to live in New York City, and improving police training. But the criticism that would sting the most, which progressive and reform leaders in New York would make, was based not on Christines choice to stand alongside Borough President Molinari, but on the fact that the majority reports recommendations actually stopped short of making real police brutality reforms. 32 One of the reforms, which Christine rejected, was the creation of a special prosecutors office to independently oversee the NYPD.33 On issues like police brutality and race, you never compromise, Norman Siegel was quoted as having said at the time. Mr. Siegel was then the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU). But Quinn said her strategy was to make it easier for Mayor Giuliani who called some of the report's recommendations unrealistic to adopt reforms quickly in the wake of the sodomy and torture of Abner Louima, allegedly by police, reported The New York Daily
lesbian-anti-violence-project 32 http://articles.nydailynews.com/1999-02-20/entertainment/18092136_1_christine-quinn-gay-rights- lesbian-anti-violence-project 33 http://www.columbia.edu/itc/journalism/cases/katrina/Human%20Rights%20Watch/uspohtml/uspo99.htm
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News.34 Here was Christine, serving on her first major civic role before running for City Council, and her strategy was to water down the police brutality task forces recommendations. This very act here foreshadowed so much of what was to come. A nave activist or leader, early in their career, can be excused for trying to work within a system with a broken culture, such as the NYPD. But, over time or if one truly works to reach consensus with others more experienced, one would come to figure out that the political system and the NYPD have a culture that is unaccountable for their failures. A politician, who wants to advocate for superficial or incremental change, should be transparent about bringing about change on such terms. But Christine was prioritizing her desire to want to develop a working relationship with the same mayor, who once tried to restructure35 and defund36 the citys Division of AIDS Services, over the need to reform the NYPD. This was not about expecting confrontation between Christine and the mayor for the sake of confrontation, but about observing where Christine would betray progressive ideals and not own up to the consequences of having lost opportunities to bring about real reforms. New York City was known for having a police force that believed in using excessive force on citizens. Here had been an opportunity for members of the task force to create not only a whole new direction for police-community relations, but to also finally create an opening to perhaps put an end to the systemic police use of brutality and violence. Tragically, the politically-expedient approach for Christine was to leave unchallenged the NYPDs culture of using excessive, and sometimes
lesbian-anti-violence-project 35 http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/aids-head-bounced-shakeup-hra-article-1.701037 36 Bull, Chris. "Cutting It-Close : New York Citys mayor relents on AIDS budget cuts -- but for how long ?" The Advocate 14 June 1994: 20. Print.
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brutal, force. We lost an opportunity to fully address police brutality in 1997 because of Christine. How would this lost opportunity come back to haunt us ? So much of Christines story used to revolve around public safety. In the early years of her political career, she said that she was an advocate for people, who were the victims of brute force. Thats what got her a seat at the table of Mayor Giulianis police brutality task force, even though Christine would go on to side with the recommendations that had been watered-down, in order to appease Mayor Giuliani. In her later years, Christine would continue to play both sides, still trying to maintain the pretense that she continued to be an advocate for people, but, more and more, she would be seen as a defender of the repressive actions of the NYPD. To help make this distinction, take a look at how Christine handled the New York City memorial for Matthew Shepard. A few months after Mayor Giuliani resoundingly dismissed the police brutality task forces recommendations, which Christine strategized needed to be watered down, Matthew Shepard was tortured and murdered in Wyoming in a grisly hate crime that quickly became a cultural touchstone for the LGBT community. One week after Matthew died from the violent injuries, activists in New York City scheduled a candle-lit memorial and march in Midtown Manhattan. What was supposed to be a peaceful early evening march down Fifth Avenue, from about the Plaza Hotel at 59th Street to about Madison Square Park near 23rd Street, turned into a massive NYPD attack on freedom of speech and freedom of assembly -- during an emotionally-charged memorial to Matthew. People were grieving, and the mourners decided to peacefully march in honor of Matthews memory and as a
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demonstration for other victims of hate crimes. And here came the NYPD to bust up this LGBT procession.39 According to a report of that evenings events on ACT UPs website, between 3,000 and 5,000 people took part in the memorial. At many points, the peaceful march became chaotic, even from the beginning, and this was entirely due to the NYPDs attempts to thwart it. When some of the march participants stopped using the sidewalk and instead started to walk on Fifth Avenue, police officers made arrests of many people on the street. That tone of hostility and confrontation set the tone for what followed. The people in the march had to make two detours in the memorial route because of police roadblocks, and over 130 people were reported to have been arrested during the march. NYPD deployed horse-mounted police, put up barricades, tried to block the memorial march at several points, and hurled anti-gay slurs against the march participants. Some police officers used physical force to push some of the mourners at both of the route detours, and there were reports that horse-mounted police threatened to trample some of the activists. The peaceful and emotional procession in memory of Matthew Shepard was turning into a one-sided smackdown.40 The mourners, who survived the brutal over-reach by the NYPD, managed to reach their final destination at Madison Square Park,41 but, with the march over, New Yorkers had witnessed a deliberate attempt by the police to suppress freedom of assembly and freedom of expression. Five of those march participants, who had
39 http://www.actupny.org/reports/Shepard.html 40 http://www.actupny.org/reports/Shepard.html 41 http://www.actupny.org/reports/Shepard.html
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been arrested, had been denied their AIDS medicine, according to AVP. Christine took to the media to intercede on behalf of people with AIDS, who the police had forced to miss their medication, a situation that had serious health implications.42 ACT UP portrayed the confrontation against march participants as intolerance by the police, whereas The New York Daily News described the marchers as clashing with cops.43 In between the competing descriptions was Christine, making the neutral observation to The New York Daily News that there was an enormous outpouring of sadness and rage, with no more qualification about police tactics. Once she was in office, Christine found herself reaching a point where she could not advocate for real reforms. Although that is precisely what she was expected to do, she could not afford the political risk associated with calling for systemic reforms of the NYPD -- not even with the sensibilities from once having been the executive director of AVP. If she couldnt do it as a member of a civic task force, where she had the benefit of the NYCLU as a ready partner to triangulate public opinion into calling for real police reforms, then she certainly wasnt going to initiate calls for reforms as an elected official on the City Council. It was left up to ACT UP to give the blow-by-blow on its website about what really took place during the Matthew Shepard memorial march for the public to fully understand what had happened.
42
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1454&dat=19981022&id=0bhOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=uB4EAAAAIBAJ&pg =3653,2641867 43 http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=Protesters+Praise+Strong+Showing+- +New+York+Daily+News%E2%80%8E+nydailynews.com+- +Oct+20%2c+1998&d=4771430311989136&mkt=en-US&setlang=en- US&w=jHwDykQxa3J5y8n_J2Kl9dNYMsF7PVEH or http://www.flickr.com/photos/abovegroundpool/2898974456/in/photostream/
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One year later, eight of the march participants filed a federal lawsuit against Mayor Giuliani, Police Commissioner Howard Safir, and the NYPD.44 At a press conference outside NYPD Headquarters to announce the federal lawsuit related to the Matthew Shepard memorial vigil, one of the lawsuits plaintiffs and his lawyer were joined by Christine and Sen. Duane. The political pair were there to lend support to the march participants, who had been falsely arrested, had been unlawfully held on buses with no access to bathrooms or telephones, and had had their constitutional rights violated. But about two years earlier from that days federal lawsuit press conference, Christine was watering down the Task Forces recommendations, in order to make them more palatable to Mayor Giuliani. The Matthew Shepard memorial vigil became another example of NYPDs use of excessive force, and there was Christine playing both sides of the fence : visibly playing the part of a sympathetic LGBT leader, as in her AVP days ; meanwhile, in backroom meetings, she was trying to make it easier for Mayor Giuliani -- to basically prevent real reforms of the NYPD. Christine was learning in her very first year in City Council that she could appease a powerful mayor by watering down public oversight of the NYPD on the one hand, and then, later, to use photo ops to maintain the pretense of her image as someone, who cared about how the NYPD unfairly oppressed peaceful LGBT demonstrations on the other hand. Christines political career was being founded on an experiment : could a once bold community activist really hold public office and remain true to her former outside strategy from the inside ? How would this experiment play out ?
44 http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/13/nyregion/eight-arrested-at-rally-file-suit-saying-city-violated-their-
rights.html
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Christines political career was born, and would lunge forward, from so many political contradictions. The LGBT community found a more welcoming home among the Democratic Party, but, when she first ran for public office, Christine had to run a grassroots campaign as an outsider within the Democratic Party, even though she had had Sen. Duanes support. It had taken years for Sen. Duane to launch a real political career. He had been the elected Democratic District Leader for Chelsea for several years before he eventually ran for City Council, said Phil Ryan, a public relations consultant, who used to be a member of Chelsea Reform Democratic Club during that time. The party system rewards people, who put in their time year after year and sort of wait their turn to run, Mr. Ryan said recently, about the beginning of Sen. Duanes career. But in her campaign for City Council, Christine had leapfrogged over those, who had been patiently waiting their turn. There was urgency for the LGBT community to explain Christines campaign. Going back to the 1970s, there was always a cadre of LGBT Democrats, who pushed for equality and sought to become players in Manhattan Democratic politics, Mr. Ryan said. This was part of the gay movement and antedates the emergence of HIV. By the mid-1980s, HIV became the paramount issue, of course. It became even more important to make elected officials pay attention to us and our interests, and inevitably to run LGBT folks for public office. Insurgent political campaigns by LGBT candidates, although rare, were nothing new in New York City. In 1973, the year when Harvey Milk launched his first campaign for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, which turned out to be
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unsuccessful, Jim Owles announced his political campaign for City Council. Mr. Owles had accused a reform Democrat politician, Carol Greitzer, of having become all talk and no action, and he challenged her for her City Council seat.45 At the point when elected officials reached the stage of having become transactional politicians, they became vulnerable to electoral challenge. While Mr. Owles lost that contest, major social and legal changes were already underway. The revolutionary Stonewall riots, the work of LGBT civil rights group Gay Activist Alliance, which had been co- founded by Mr. Owles, and the emergence of openly LGBT candidates for public office signaled the crossing of a threshold. Indeed, in 1985 a very inspiring activist, David Rothenberg, ran for City Council. In the progressive-leaning West Side of Manhattan, Mr. Rothenberg came to be seen as the ideal kind of leader for whom the LGBT community could provide support. Before he became politically active, Mr. Rothenberg had been a Broadway producer and press agent. His experience producing a play called Fortune and Mens Eyes led to his founding of the Fortune Society, an organization which helps inmates and formerly incarcerated individuals.46 Years before AVP was formed, Mr. Rothenberg was engaging with NYPD to create a new sensibility among police officers about LGBT concerns.47 Mr. Rothenberg ran against Ms. Greitzer in 1985, because once again Ms. Greitzer remained vulnerable to accusations of having become ineffectual. The LGBT community was heavily concentrated in the Manhattan neighborhoods of Chelsea and Greenwich Village, but because Ms.
45 http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/08/obituaries/james-w-owles-is-dead-at-46-was-founder-of-gay-rights-
group.html 46 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444024204578044743356640324.html 47 http://8th-14th.northwestern.edu/chelsea/Gay%208th%20Ave/gay_history.htm
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Greitzers district extended to the East Side, the demographics would not yet support the election of an LGBT politician. Mr. Rothenberg described his campaign as a watershed moment, because he had all the resources to win, including the support of civil rights champion Bayard Rustin.48 Mr. Rothenberg still waged what The New York Times described, at that time, as one of the best-financed campaigns in New York City Council history.49 The occasion of Mr. Rothenbergs close campaign made many LGBT activists see that it was really possible to finally elect an openly LGBT candidate into public office. In 1989, Tom Duane was inspired to mount a campaign against Ms. Greitzer. He, too, came close to winning the primary election, but again the demographics in the district did not exist to help an LGBT candidate to win office.50 But time was on the side of LGBT activists. Former mayor Ed Koch would lose the 1989 mayoral election to David Dinkins.51 To many in the LGBT community, Mayor Koch had become a symbol of failure and disappointment. Mayor Kochs loss pointed to the fact that the LGBT community was able to look beyond identity politics and elect a candidate solely based on the issues. Would this serve as a foreshadowing for Christines future ? The front side of the need to elect an LGBT candidate to replace Ms. Greitzer was to fulfill on the promise of electing a leader, to whom the community could turn, for support within city government. The 1980s was the first decade of the AIDS
48 http://gaycitynews.com/on-the-cusp-of-80-david-rothenberg-looks-back/ 49 http://www.nytimes.com/1985/09/11/nyregion/borough-chief-defeats-lipper-by-2-to-1-edge.html 50 http://www.nytimes.com/1989/09/14/nyregion/the-new-york-times-tuesday-s-primary-election-
results.html 51 http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/mayor-elect-david-dinkins-gives-a-speech-november-7- 1989-in-news-photo/1446037
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pandemic. Agencies were being forming around the issue of advocating for services for LGBT victims of bias violence and healthcare for people with HIV/AIDS. Activists wanted laws passed to outlaw discrimination against the LGBT community. An elected LGBT official with a truly progressive sensibility could help facilitate breakthroughs in legal, social services, and healthcare reforms. But the 1980s also coincided with the mayoral administration of Ed Koch, who was not sympathetic to LGBT causes. The back side of the need to elect an openly LGBT politician was to counter the do-nothing administration of Mayor Koch. The LGBT community would keep pushing to elect a real leader, who could deliver reforms. Many decades later, an acquaintance of Christine portrayed the emergence of Christines political career as having been built upon decades of gay politics. There was a great deal riding on Christines political career, one person said. But this observation was part of Christines unofficial backchannel myth : that Christine saw herself as the embodiment of the LGBT movement for equality. She did not see herself as an interchangeable advocate, who just so happened to be in this particular point in time the one who was readily willing and available to help to answer the communitys pent-up demand for reforms, equality, and representation. As was seen with AVP, Christines ideas of reforms were not always based on reality, but on creating a legend. It is unclear if Christine was so vain as to really believe that she was the poster child for LGBT equality, or if she was deliberately trading on her identity solely to advance her political career. Nonetheless, the myth about the importance of Christines career to the larger LGBT community would continue to be propagated.
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Many people described Christine as someone, who rewarded her allies and punished her critics. One person described her in the most diplomatic of terms : as impatient. Like the political party system itself, Christine demanded political discipline in her personal relationships. Mr. Ryan, one of the only people, who would actually speak on the record, had a balanced view of Christine. He said that he first met Christine when she was brought in to run Tom Duanes campaign for City Council in 1991. Christine had great energy and determination, he said. Christines first longterm companion, Laura Morrison, assisted with Tom Duanes campaign for City Council, and it was around that time when Christine and Ms. Morrison became lovers, Mr. Ryan remembered. For many years, Mr. Ryan employed Ms. Morrison in his public relations office. Other activists described Ms. Morrison as a very effective field organizer. She was extremely valuable on political campaigns. From her work on Tom Duanes campaigns for the City Council, Ms. Morrison came to be known to many people. They could relate to her, and she learned a lot about Chelsea and Greenwich Village. When it came time for Christine to run for office, Christine relied on a lot of assistance from Ms. Morrison. But the activist community was a small world. Many people adored Ms. Morrison, and they were shocked to find out that as soon as Christine won the 1999 special election with a lot of help from Ms. Morrison, Christine ended her relationship with Ms. Morrison. People felt like Ms. Morrison was a sincere and endearing person, but they saw Christines treatment of Ms. Morrison as opportunistic and unfair. After the episode where Mr. Foreman and
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others had been thrown under the bus by Christine, many activists noted her perceived mistreatment of Ms. Morrison in a similar fashion. In the 1999 special election that put Christine on the map, she campaigned as the underdog. Early on, Christine learned that when people were confronted with two opposing opinions about the same situation, people tended to chose the opinion that would keep them in accord with a larger group of people. Because activists were very passionate and dedicated to bringing about social change, and because so many activists had become invested in seeing Christine succeed -- after all, there were gains to be made in the name of LGBT equality, HIV/AIDS healthcare, and antidiscrimination reforms -- Christine had found a way to use peer pressure and a constant invocation of cognitive dissonance to her advantage. The key to Christines career can be found in her efforts to maintain a broad, if superficial, appeal among the LGBT community. Years later, though, it would become important to Christine to tone down her agitation on behalf of LGBT advocacy in order to blend in.52 Just like how President Barack Obama now goes to great lengths to avoid appearing as an angry Black man, to the point of embracing passivity and aloofness, Christine would also eventually be guided by communications professionals to avoid situations, where she would be perceived as solely being an LGBT candidate in order to attract more mainstream support. In spite of her raison dtre, Christine would, over time, come to agree to tone down her advocacy for LGBT equality. A constant observation made was that over the course of Christines career, she had to be femmed-up. But in those early years, it
52 http://gaycitynews.com/when-a-lesbian-marriage-trivializes-a-political-career/
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was important for her to be seen as agitating on behalf of LGBT advocacy, even if it meant interrupting local institutions or traditions. She first had to solidify her street cred. In the days following the Matthew Shepard memorial vigil, there was talk in LGBT circles that the annual Greenwich Village Halloween Parade needed to be canceled, because the parade had come to be perceived as one giant opportunity of permissible taunting and bullying of LGBT participants and spectators, including instances of anti-LGBT violence.53 That year, in the time leading up to that 1999 special election for her City Council seat, Christine had been publicizing as many examples of anti-LGBT violence to raise her profile and to discuss violence against the LGBT community. Advocacy work was highlighting the fact that there was an 81% rise in New York City of reported anti-LGBT biased crimes.54 And now, some critics were making the observation that Tom Duane was calling for the Halloween Parades cancellation based on his perception that the Halloween Parade had become a sea of homophobia, solely to set up a platform for Christine to talk up the issue of anti-LGBT bias. Parade organizers resented that Tom and Christine were co-opting the parade for short-term campaigning advantages. In spite of the last- minute politicization by Tom and Christine, the parade went on that year, as scheduled, and Christines and Toms careers kept on ascending, which was the whole point. They got the attention that they wanted.
53 http://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/31/nyregion/bad-spirits-invade-village-parade-minor-event-becomes-
major-causes-major-dissent.html 54 http://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/31/nyregion/bad-spirits-invade-village-parade-minor-event-becomes- major-causes-major-dissent.html
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Christine had become a master of crafting a caring public image : always standing in the foreground at press conferences and major photo ops about LGBT issues. When former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was on the campaign trail to first run to represent New York in the U.S. Senate, Christine walked along one side of Ms. Clinton in the 2000 Gay Pride Parade whilst Sen. Duane walked alongside the other.55 Christine kept on the look-out for opportunities like that, where she could fluff her image. But on November 14, 1999, Christines self-image making would take a back seat to the larger narrative of the suppression of freedom of speech by the NYPD. On August 7, 1998, the United Stated embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were bombed.56 The U.S. launched cruise missile strikes on targets in each of Sudan and Afghanistan as an international response to the attacks on the American embassies in Africa.57 More locally, Mayor Giuliani ordered tighter security around City Hall, because, in his mind, he thought that City Hall would become a natural retaliatory target in response to the U.S. cruise missile strikes,58 and the NYPD put up concrete barricades around City Hall and placed police cruisers to block the entrances to parking areas.59 The legal battles that Mayor Giuliani triggered with his restrictions to public access to City Hall would drag on through the final year of his administration, but, in 1999, those restrictions would almost interfere with one of Christines staged press conferences.
57
55 Plunkett, Suzanne. The Associated Press. The Lakeland Ledger, Monday, June 26, 2000, p. A3. 56 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_United_States_embassy_bombings
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_United_States_embassy_bombings#Aftermath_and_international_response 58 http://articles.nydailynews.com/1998-11-25/news/18084685_1_world-aids-day-city-hall-housing-works 59 http://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/01/nyregion/court-allows-limited-rally-at-city-hall.html
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After a series of unexplained murders of gay men in Harlem, Christine organized a last-minute, week-end press conference on the steps of City Hall.60 61 Police said that they had not received a message left by Christines Council office with the NYPDs City Hall security unit. The message was described to be a request for permission to use City Hall property for a media event. Because the police said that they had not received the message, whatever that meant, police officers would not approve Christines press conference. Such were the unreasonable, some would say arbitrary and possibly politically-motivated, security restrictions imposed around City Hall by Mayor Giuliani. But Christine knew the trick about getting around the NYPD. All it took was for her to ask the NYPD to call the Speaker of the City Council, then Peter Vallone, Sr., and, once the City Council Speaker vouched for Christine, the police allowed Christine to have her press conference. The next day, in The New York Times, the article about Christines press conference focused more on police restrictions on the public use of City Hall steps than on the communitys concern for a possible connection between three different killings of gay men up in Harlem.62 Still, Christine kept pushing her public image, and she learned a valuable lesson : police took orders from City Hall, which could be the mayor or the speaker of the City Council. You had a higher chance of having your freedom of speech protected from harassment by the NYPD if you were a City Councilmember and if you were in good standing with the City Council Speaker. The City Hall police unit deferred to the
60 http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/15/nyregion/police-officers-again-guard-city-hall-from-officials.html 61 http://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/27/nyregion/neighborhood-report-harlem-wake-four-murders-
politicians-gay-groups-urge-action.html 62 http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/15/nyregion/police-officers-again-guard-city-hall-from-officials.html
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bosses inside City Hall ; they took orders from politicians. Look at how as soon as Speaker Vallone approved Christiners request to have her press conference, that that was considered sufficient validation for the City Hall police unit. If a City Council Speaker said that it was O.K. for a group to use a public space, like a public sidewalk, a public park, perhaps, or the public steps outside City Hall, then it really was O.K. The City Council Speaker had that kind of power.
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Chapter 2
A trap that befalls some activists is that some activists begin to believe that, in order to win against an unjust system, one must play by the rules of that unjust system. There comes to be a desperation to break through the high, almost impenetrable, barriers to policy-making that have been erected by incumbents or powerholders, which keep citizens out of participating in their own governance. Theres a sense that, for an activist to become a powerholder in the traditional sense, namely, to become an elected official, an activist cannot take the highroad, because an incumbent will always have more options available, especially if incumbents are politically-expedient or even underhanded. Temptations exist that may compromise an activists ethics or morals on his/her ascension into becoming an office holder, even if an activist once was a community organizer. In the personal journey that some activists make to become a community organizer, the process to become influential in policy-making, and, later, to make the transition to become a powerholder, some activists put their own electability over the urgency of the needs of the communities they promised to serve. In other words, it becomes a rat race to win elections. Rather, it should be a process, a set of decisions and realizations about the importance of respecting and improving opportunities for all citizens to participate in our representative form of democratic governance. Because of our representative form of government, the goal should be to move toward greater direct participation, not less. The sensibility for equality and progress should show up very early in an activists career or reveal itself in the arc of their activism.
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This idea, that our elected leaders should never lose focus on the need to continually reform government to eliminate the tendencies for corruption of the democratic process, was an important underpinning of the Progressive Era in the United States.65 Political reforms, such as voter initiatives, voter referenda, recall petitions, direct primaries, and the direct election of U.S. Senators, for example, were hallmark Progressive Era achievements during the first two decades of the 20th Century. 66 The idea that the will of voters should not be subverted was an important corollary. During this time, other reforms would come about. In New York State, the Moreland Act was a state-level Progressive Era achievement that came about only after corruption in New Yorks insurance department.67 68 In New York, it seemed like it took a crisis for the citizenry to rise up to demand government reforms. After 146 people died and 71 people were injured during the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, for example, reforms came about that would give rise to inspections of workplace conditions.69 It took for living conditions in tenement apartments to reach inhumane proportions before reforms would give rise to improving tenement housing conditions. 70 71 Meanwhile, in New York City, the Tammany Hall political machine once controlled municipal elections for decades. During the Tammany Hall era, New York City voters lived through systematic and institutionalized political and electoral corruption. Democratic Party nominations and the allocation of political patronage
65 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism_in_the_United_States 66 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism_in_the_United_States 67 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moreland_Act 68 http://www.lifeinthefingerlakes.com/articles.php?view=article&id=228 69 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire 70 http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Progressives_and_the_Slums.html?id=_eXT5Bp1n4IC 71 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_State_Tenement_House_Act
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were solely based on maintaining and expanding the power of the political machine.72 Consequently, some New York City activists were quick to use the term political boss to describe officials, who were perceived to be deliberately trying to undermine an open and democratic process to citizen participation of any kind. Because the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan was an epicenter of new and radical ideas, the reforms that the Progressive Era brought about came to be cornerstones of the political thought of Greenwich Village voters and activists. Even half a century after the Progressive Era ended, Greenwich Village was still an important outpost of what it meant to continue to fight for government reforms. In 1964, it was Jane Jacobs, a Greenwich Village author and activist, and her community organizing, which ended up convincing New York City to oppose a controversial crosstown expressway through Lower Manhattan.73 The progressive ideals of Greenwich Village came to be shared by the city-at-large. In the 1990s, when a popular anti-incumbent movement developed in the country, New Yorkers twice approved new political reforms in the form of limits of two terms on the mayoralty and other city officials.74 People wanted a government that answered to voters, not one that encouraged incumbents to cater to special interests. Even though nationally the Progressive movement achieved political visibility in both political parties, it was former Republican President Theodore Roosevelt in whom the movement gained critical early mainstream support.75 Over time, as the Progressive movement gave way to the New Deal, ideals about making
72 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammany_Hall 73 http://www.pbs.org/wnet/blueprintamerica/video/the-dig-web-video-the-master-builder-1977/925/ 74 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/03/nyregion/03limits.html 75 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Party_(United_States,_1912)
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government reforms came to be more closely aligned with the underpinnings of the Democratic Party. Voters in New York City, and the rest of the state, routinely turned to Democrats for leadership on progressive issues. If one voted for Democrats, then it was thought that one stood a stronger chance of laying the ground work for progressive solutions to social, economic, and political issues. So long as liberals did not become corrupted, the Democratic Party seemed to be a safe bet for progressives. Therefore, in those early years, Christine embraced the moniker of progressive. Her early campaign website, hosted on Tripod, described her as a long-time progressive activist.76 At the time, Sen. Duane described Christine as a "progressive Democrat deeply committed to serving our neighborhoods."77 The repetition of the code word was not accidental. Voters were looking forward to elections to select politicians, who could be counted on delivering reforms. Here, Christines campaign was effective on messaging : they knew what voters wanted to hear. And as Christines political career was taking off, she was learning from her political advisers, and she was drawing from her own experience, that it was prudent and beneficial to have the right veneer. If the modifier progressive was repeated enough times, people would learn to believe it, especially considering she needed something to counteract her record on Mayor Giulianis task force, for example. Her principal challenger for the Democratic primary race for the City Council seat in 1999 was Christopher Lynn. Mr. Lynn was running for City Council with
76 http://christinequinn.tripod.com/bio.htm 77 http://christinequinn.tripod.com/articles.htm#Waking%20up%20the%20voters
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endorsements from two of the citys high profile political clubs : the Village Reform Democratic Club and the Stonewall Democratic Club.78 Mr. Lynn was a prominent gay attorney, and he had put in his time and had patiently waited his turn. Finally, his time had come to be allowed to run for office. All things being equal, if any political machine was still at work, then Mr. Lynn should have won : he had advantages bestowed upon him by the Democratic Party. And in some slightly altruistic way, it would have been a great sign of the progressive mindset that might have prevailed during that election, that might have at first glance given the impression that voters werent able to be swayed by party favoritism, but it cannot be entirely determined if Christine won that race based on a truly grassroots effort. While Mr. Lynn was proud of some noteworthy political achievements, such as boasting that he had previously served as Taxicab Commissioner79 and Transportation Commissioner,80 there was also criticism about his politics. Mr. Lynn had been involved in a controversy that led to a whistleblower incident and other questionable acts during his service in the Giuliani administration.81 But issues about political party favouritism or integrity werent what came to the fore in the City Council race. Instead, Christine was helped to win that first, special election to City Council in 1999, because of a last-minute smear campaign. Nobody knows who did it, but somebody leaked embarrassing information to The Village Voice about one of Christines opponents. In The Village Voice hatchet job, it was the tabloid-like
78 http://www.villagevoice.com/1999-01-26/news/the-company-he-keeps/ 79 http://www.dcwatch.com/dorothy/dot000313.htm 80 http://articles.nydailynews.com/1997-04-17/news/18034626_1_demoted-sign-maker-dot 81 http://www.dcwatch.com/dorothy/dot000313.htm
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arrest of one of Mr. Lynns campaign workers on drugs and weapons charges that was used to smear Mr. Lynn just weeks before the special election.82 The expos wasnt based on Mr. Lynns alleged close ties to the real estate industry or developers,83 but it was an arrest of a campaign worker that would basically lead to the end of his political career. And, out of Mr. Lynns misfortune, rose Christine, who ran as Mr. Duanes favorite. A few days after news broke about the drug and weapons charges against Mr. Lynns former campaign worker, The New York Post published allegations made by Mr. Lynns campaign that Maura Keaney was working on Christines election campaign, even though she was being paid to be Sen. Duanes campaign manager. Ms. Keaney had worked for then Councilmember Duanes City Council staff, and now she was doing campaign work. The New York Post questioned whether Mauras work for Christines campaign amounted to surreptitious financial help. Candidates who accept matching funds from the Campaign Finance Board -- and all of the candidates to replace Sen. Duane on the City Council had applied for such funds, The New York Post reported -- must agree to a $137,000 spending limit. Any transactions conducted outside that limit are illegal.84 Sen. Duane denied the Lynn campaigns allegations, calling them completely ridiculous. And Christines campaign also denied the allegations. That the Lynn campaign would resort to making such allegations was an indication that that Mr. Lynns campaign was desperate, people close to Christine alleged. Mark Guma, a
82 http://www.villagevoice.com/1999-01-26/news/the-company-he-keeps/ 83 http://www.dcwatch.com/dorothy/dot000313.htm 84 http://www.nypost.com/p/news/item_m3TNZ93XMcjLvSCG7BLFeN
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spokeman for Christines campaign, told The New York Post that Mr. Lynns campaign must be sinking fast. In his interview with Sen. Duane, David Seifman, the City Hall Bureau Chief at The New York Post, was able to confirm that, although Sen. Duane was paying Maura to be his campaign manager, she was also volunteering for Christines campaign on the side. Mr. Seifman wrote that Maura worked long hours raising funds, scheduling house parties and petitioning for Sen. Duanes unopposed primary and general election victory,,85 which ended up being a landslide. Sen. Duanes state senate district encompassed Manhattans very liberal West Side. Why would Mauras work take long hours when the candidate was being hand-picked by the political party to run in an unopposed primary in a bastion of liberal politics ? For all her work, Maura received an extraordinary $5,000 bonus after Sen. Duane won his election. Yet, for all the time she performed her time-consuming work, for which she was paid by Sen. Duanes campaign, Sen. Duane acknowledged that Maura had also found the time to volunteer for Christines campaign.86 On Christines official campaign finance reports, there were no disclosures of donations of volunteer time paid by Sen. Duane.87 Christines first campaign was not entirely a grassroots effort ; she raised a total of $67,595.00 in declared in contributions.88 The average donation was approximately $125.18. Because New York City has progressive campaign finance
87 85 http://www.nypost.com/p/news/item_m3TNZ93XMcjLvSCG7BLFeN 86 http://www.nypost.com/p/news/item_m3TNZ93XMcjLvSCG7BLFeN
http://www.nyccfb.info/searchabledb/ScheduleContributionSearchResult.aspx?ec_id=1999A&ec=1999A&cand _id=204&cand=Quinn,%20Christine%20C&date=&stmt=&stmt_id=&stmt_display=&sche_id=D&sche=In%20Kin d%20Contributions%20(Schedule%20D) 88 http://www.nyccfb.info/searchabledb/
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laws, Christines first run for public office was augmented by generous public campaign financing. This allowed her to leverage the first tranche of campaign donations into additional resources in the form of public financing. The New York Posts reporting included a snapshot of the dueling campaigns finances : As of January 31, 1999, Christine had received the maximum amount in matching campaign funds, namely, $75,350. Yet, Mr. Lynns campaign was still waiting to receive $50,000.00 in matching funds, which were being delayed due to missing paperwork. 89 In the critical weeks of his campaign, when candidates almost solely focus on generating voter turn-out, Mr. Lynn was at a clear disadvantage. Eventually, the New York City Campaign Finance Board would report that Mr. Lynn had a $50,000.00 finance advantage over Christines campaign.90 Nevertheless, Christine would go on to win the special election two weeks later. When The New York Times reported an account of Christines election win by a nearly 3-to-1 lead over her closest opponent, the newspaper of record attributed Christines success to Mr. Lynns association with the Giuliani administration. Mr. Lynn's candidacy proved to be less formidable, Manhattan politicians contend, largely because of his association with the Republican Mayor in a heavily Democratic district. Mr. Lynn finished last in yesterday's election.91 In those early years, Christine was vocal about how she was an activist, about how she advocated on behalf of those with less, be they the poor, the working class, women, LGBT New Yorkers, and still yet others, who knew discrimination or
89 http://www.nypost.com/p/news/item_m3TNZ93XMcjLvSCG7BLFeN 90 http://www.nyccfb.info/VSApps/WebForm_Finance_Summary.aspx?as_election_cycle=1999A&sm=press_12 91 http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/17/nyregion/gay-rights-advocate-wins-village-seat.html
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injustice. To be an effective advocate, Christine needed to remain independent from outside pressure groups, which would be opposed to social, legal, and economic reforms. And the key to Christines political independence would be to have integrity about from whom she would solicit campaign donations. Indeed, Christine was reported to have made a promise to voters that she would not accept campaign donations from the real estate industry.92 But her 1999 special campaign donation records were reviewed by John Fisher, the administrator of ChristineQuinn.com, and what he discovered seemed to indicate that Christine wasnt keeping true to her promise of forgoing real estate campaign donations.
Donor REAL ESTATE-RELATED CAMPAIGN DONATIONS TO CHRISTINE QUINNS 1999 CAMPAIGN Employer Amount
Margaret Brown Stuart Beckerman Jerome Gottesman William Gottlieb (and/or possible others) Brenda Levin Eileen OToole Michael Ratner Howard Rubenstein Steven Rubenstein Joy Tomchin Ian Tattenbaum Paul Travis
Association for a Better New York (Attorney) Edison Properties William Gottlieb Real Estate NYC2012 Kossoff Alper & Unger Ratner/Forest City Rubenstein Associates Rubenstein Associates Vanguard Investors (Attorney) Washington Square Partners
50.00 100.00 500.00 1,100.00
100.00 100.00 125.00 500.00 1,000.00 250.00 100.00 300.00 $ 4,225.00

93

92 http://christinequinn.com/content/quinns-lies-debates-past 93 http://christinequinn.com/content/when-did-quinn-start-lying
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Not only was Christine already accepting donations from real estate interests, but she was also accepting donations from affordable housing and tenant activists, such as employees of Housing Works and the Gay Mens Health Crisis (GMHC). Also donating to Christines campaign was Michael McKee, that controversial tenant activist alongside whom Christine once did tenant organizing.94 And herein lies the paradox behind the myth of Christines career. She would always claim that she began her career in tenant advocacy, but the stories she would tell would be incomplete, because she would always neglect to mention that she also had a history of playing both sides of the fence. She would propagate her image as an advocate for the cameras, but, behind the scenes, she was also taking real estate money. Christine was double-dipping, but she knew that if she kept giving lip service to her advocacy work, she would trigger cognitive dissonance. She would make people believe in her, just by repeating what people were desperate to hear : that she was going to be a different kind of politician. She was going to base her entire political career on staying true to her activist roots. This was the myth in which Christine wanted you to believe. But Christine couldnt pull off this strategy of cognitive dissonance all by herself. She needed help. She needed people to give her cover. Christine was lucky that, early in her career, she had Sen. Duane to talk up her progressive nature. But Christine also had others. One of her early supporters was Kenneth Monteiro, one of
94
http://www.nyccfb.info/searchabledb/AdvancedContributionSearchResult.aspx?ec_id=1999A&ec=1999A&can d_id=204&cand=Quinn%2c+Christine+C
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the former chairs of the board of directors at AVP. Another early supporter was Kevin Finnegan. Mr. Finnegan was a New York City political operative, who began his political career by working on Harvey Milks successful 1977 campaign to join the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.95 96 Christines career also had the support of other political operatives, like Elizabeth Berger, who was once a partner at the old law firm of LeBeouf Lamb Greene & MacRae, and lobbyist Emily Giske and lawyer Robert Christmas, who both once worked at another old law firm, Nixon Hargraves. Still yet another key early supporter was Richard Davis, a former partner with the law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges.97 Mr. Davis distinguished himself by having been a member of the Watergate Special Prosecutor Force, where he was chief trial counsel in the prosecutions of Nixon Deputy Assistant Dwight Chapin and California Lt. Gov. Edwin Reinecke.98 Mr. Davis also got to work with Christine on Mayor Giulianis task force on police-community relations.99 Many of these early supporters would be rewarded over time for their contributions in helping to launch Christines political career, and they would be part of the effort to give her political cover in the years to come. But some of Christines early supporters would eventually come to face-to-face with Christines political ethics. In the years to come, how would Christine maintain the veneer of her progressive label ? Already, Christine had experienced criticisms for having thrown highly-respected LGBT leaders under the bus, for having appeared to have
97 95 http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2009/01/finnegan-the-new-gaspard-at-11.html 96 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Milk
http://www.nyccfb.info/searchabledb/AdvancedContributionSearchResult.aspx?ec_id=1999A&ec=1999A&can d_id=204&cand=Quinn%2c+Christine+C 98 http://www.weil.com/davis-appointed-to-nyc-campaign-finance-board/ 99 http://www.nyccfb.info/press/info/board_members.htm#Davis
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hitched her political wagon to the divisive Republican mayor, Rudy Giuliani, and for having appeared to have double-dipped in tenant advocacy and real estate industry campaign donations. In what direction would the trajectory of her political arc lead under the next mayor ? Would she remain true to her grassroots political upbringing, or would her journey into the belly of the whale result in a different kind of outcome, one that would lead to a political betrayal of her roots in activism ? In her first year in office, Christine did her part to brandish her progressive, if not radical, traits. At her swearing-in ceremony, as was reported by New York magazine, Eve Ensler performed a reading of The Vagina Monologues, which was already on its way to becoming a revolutionary play about womens empowerment.100 Christine was bold to use The Vagina Monologues as the backdrop for her inauguration festivities, but this was the old Christine, who was confident about her radical roots. The Vagina Monologues fit in nicely with her identity as an activist and advocate. After she was elected, Christine wasnt the first lesbian City Councilmember in New York City. Margarita Lpez, who once represented the East Village in City Council, had been elected to the City Council before Christine.101 But Christine had ambition and determination to not stop at just being an official representing a small municipal district, even if it was in New York City. Now that she held public office, it was Christines turn to pick a chief-of-staff. Like she had once been Mr. Duanes right arm in his City Council office, Christine was going to need an idealistic person, on whom she could rely, someone with

100 http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/columns/intelligencer/1127/ 101 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margarita_Lpez
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whom she could be compatible, somebody who shared the same sensibilities of integrity and complete loyalty. She picked Maura Keaney. Maura had been selected the year before to be Sen. Duanes campaign manager,102 a position that Christine had also once served for Sen. Duane. Prior to that, Maura had worked as one of then Councilmember Duanes aides. It would only be natural for Christine to pick Maura, since Maura had herself started out with then Councilmember Duane. This was Christines opportunity to mold somebody in her own image, and since Sen. Duane would be spending so much of his official time up in Albany, Maura now had a way to stay grounded in New York City. But if Christine and Maura had been strangers, then at first blush, one would see how they would use their connection to Sen. Duane as way to build a new, closer shared affinity. But in actuality they knew each other : both of them worked out of the same campaign office. While Maura was working for Duanes senatorial campaign, Ms. Morrison was working on Christines City Council campaign in the very same office space : at 33 West 14th Street. Sen. Duane had had an easy election, because he ran unopposed in the Democratic primary, a sure sign that the Democratic Party was hand-picking him to win. When a political party wants a candidate to win, they make sure that the primaries are cleared for their favorites. There was a way to enforce discipline like that. So, Sen. Duanes campaign was going to be a shoe-in. In fact, he ended up winning 86 percent of the vote.103 Meanwhile, Christine was in a four-way race, facing Mr. Lynn, who had two major political club endorsements and his own bipartisan connections with the Giuliani administration.
102 http://www.nypost.com/p/news/item_m3TNZ93XMcjLvSCG7BLFeN 103 http://www.nypost.com/p/news/item_m3TNZ93XMcjLvSCG7BLFeN
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Whereas Sen. Duane ran with the blessings of the Democratic Party, Christine had to wage her first political campaign against the Democratic Partys chosen favorite any way that she could. A few months after her swearing-in, Christine found herself at the receiving end of a vicious post-election smear campaign. The New York Observer reported that Christines political enemies were circulating rumours that she was actually heterosexual and not a lesbian. In her short time in City Council, Christine had rubbed enough people the wrong way that she had triggered a serious backlash, which could amount to political death in her heavily gay district, wrote Greg Sargent.104 The cumulative effect of Christines treatment of Mr. Foreman, Ms. Morrison, members of political clubs, and still yet others were catching up to her. So, Christine had to grant a one-on-one interview to Mr. Sarget of The New York Observer, in order to do damage control, as he described it. Some voters in Christines district complained that she was a sore winner, that she was punishing political foes with Tammany-in-lavender tactics that have no place in the Village and Chelsea, the heart of Democratic reform politics.105 A few startling passages in The Observer served to illustrate Christines temperament : Ms. Quinn doesnt see herself as a hack. She prefers the term bitch. I am very clear that a part of my personality is what some people might call a bitch, she said. And I am very comfortable with that. I accept it both as a personality asset and as a personality defect. And I think as Ive gotten more mature -- $500,000 worth of therapy
104 http://observer.com/1999/06/christine-quinn-sets-it-straight-im-a-lesbian-yup-100-percent/ 105 http://observer.com/1999/06/christine-quinn-sets-it-straight-im-a-lesbian-yup-100-percent/
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later -- I know when to be a bitch and I know when not to be a bitch. I make a conscious decision about when Im gonna, you know, open up the bitch tap and let the water run. It can be really effective when I need it to. Ive gotten through to people who are far more important than me by being, you know, a real bitch to their staff on the telephone. 106 Even this early on, reports began to surface of political retaliation made by Christine against people for ridiculous but perceived slights. Now that Christine was an office holder, she had power, and she was unafraid to exert it. The Observer piece addressed this. Then there is the strange case of Kyle Merker, who charges he was bumped from midtowns Community Board 5 by Ms. Quinn -- in retaliation for challenging a Quinn loyalist for the coveted post of Board 5s vice chairman. Not exactly Tammany Hall, perhaps -- but unpleasant nonetheless for Mr. Merker, who loves his community board hobby. (He was reappointed by Manhattan Borough President Virginia Fields.) Ms. Quinn responded that she thought Mr. Merker was overly politicizing the board. 107 Christines temperament and some of the changes she made early in her tenure as a councilmember were really ruffling up some feathers. A major schism developed within one political club, the Village Independent Democrats, in the time leading up to Christines first special election. But Christine had already been resocialized as an adult in the world of New York City politics under Sen. Duane and by Mr. Quinn. Christines ambition and personality, including their divisive impact, where here to stay. The Village Independent Democrats was a political club with roots in the reform movement ; it was founded to defeat a Tammany Hall leader, Carmine DeSapio.108 One of its leaders was Carol Greitzer, against whom each of Mr. Owles
106 http://observer.com/1999/06/christine-quinn-sets-it-straight-im-a-lesbian-yup-100-percent/ 107 http://observer.com/1999/06/christine-quinn-sets-it-straight-im-a-lesbian-yup-100-percent/ 108 http://www.villagedemocrats.org/about
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ran in 1973, Mr. Rothenberg in 1985, and Tom Duane in 1989. Against the backdrop of LGBT voters becoming a new, important voting bloc, two LGBT equality advocacy groups merged in 1990 to form the Empire State Pride Agenda (ESPA). Back then, the ESPA was headed by Dick Dadey, and the newly formed group helped to build support for a newly redistricted New York City Council seat that could be deemed winnable by a member of the LGBT community.109 One activist described Mr. Dadey as one among many who had been very involved in the redistricting effort. From 1990 through 1991, the Third City Council district, then held by Ms. Greitzer, underwent a redistricting process to make it more likely that an LGBT candidate could win that seat.110 Meanwhile, before the redistricting could be completed, Deborah Glick, a former president of the influential political club, the Gay and Lesbian Independent Democrats, ran for the New York State Assembly in 1990 to represent the Greenwich Village seat, and she won to become the states first openly LGBT Assemblymember.111 Her State Assembly district, in Lower Manhattan, partly overlapped with the Third City Council district. Finally the timing was right for an openly LGBT official to be elected to public office. One year after Assemblymember Glick won, Tom Duane,112 with help from Christine as his campaign manager, was elected to the City Council. But going back to how close Mr. Rothenbergs 1985 and Tom Duanes 1989 campaigns for City Council had been, it is not exactly known how
109 http://www.prideagenda.org/About-Us/Pride-Agenda-History.aspx 110 http://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/07/nyregion/greitzer-a-democratic-colleague-will-seek-dryfoos-s-
council-seat.html 111 http://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/30/us/lesbians-clear-hurdles-to-gain-posts-of-power.html 112 http://www.nytimes.com/1991/08/08/nyregion/gay-candidate-for-city-council-says-he-has-aids- virus.html
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much of Mr. Duanes 1991 win could be attributed to Christines campaign management -- and how much should be attributed to the deliberate change in the districts boundaries. If Tom Duanes win was deemed to really come from the redistricting, which altered the demographics just right, then that would weaken the myth about Christines contribution to Tom Duanes win. Because there was so much progressive pressure to elect an LGBT candidate, Ms. Greitzer chose not to run against Tom Duane, giving him the most of an opportunity to portray himself as the necessary champion that the LGBT community needed in office to deal with major issues, such as HIV/AIDS, social services, discrimination, and healthcare reforms. The original intention of their redistricted City Council seat, common first to Mr. Duane and later to Christine, was to fulfill on the promise of being a voice of LGBT advocacy and to renew the progressive tradition many described as having been abandoned by the exiting Ms. Greitzer. Interestingly, some of the political opposition that Assemblymember Glick, then Councilmember Duane, and Christine faced or would later face would come from insiders, who were close to former Mayor Ed Koch. Indeed, Assemblymember Glick had been a critic of the Koch administration, and when she was campaigning for her Assembly seat, the LGBT political club known as the Stonewall Democrats, whose membership worked closely with Mayor Koch, refused to endorse her, in spite of the historic nature of her campaign.113 114 Mayor Koch never publicly supported these candidates, and some activists claimed that he actually opposed them. Back then, activists were disappointed with the dismal record of the Koch
113 http://gvshp.org/blog/2013/02/01/ed-koch-1924-2013-and-the-village/ 114 http://www.outweek.net/pdfs/ow_61.pdf
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administration, and some people said that Mayor Koch feared having openly LGBT officials elected to public office, because Mayor Koch didnt want to his administration pressured on issues, which he was fearful of publicly supporting. But once Christine was safely in office, after her 1999 special election, some members of the political club Village Independent Democrats expressed being upset with Christine. Going back to the controversial article published by The New York Observer, many began to see Christines style as a return of old-school bossism. 115 The 1999 special election was over, but Christine was still being subjected to a litmus test. By this time, the Village Independent Democrats had been freed from Koch Democrats, since Mayor Kochs supporters had largely split off from the Village Independent Democrats to form the Village Reform Democratic Club.116 So, the criticisms that Christine received from the Village Independent Democrats were not politically-motivated by Mayor Kochs supporters, unlike the criticisms Assemblymember Glick received from Stonewall Democrats, whose membership, in turn, were largely comprised of Mayor Kochs supporters. Theres a very mean and vindictive spirit in her, Hal Friedman, the president of Village Independent Democrats, told The New York Observer, referring to Christine. Shes beginning to act like a Tammany hack.117 The New York Observer described Christine as having been molded by her mentor. Sen. Duane had groomed Ms. Quinn as his successor. There was Sen. Duane, having helped his one-time campaign manager and former chief-of-staff, but his help had come across as having circumvented the participation
115 http://observer.com/1999/06/christine-quinn-sets-it-straight-im-a-lesbian-yup-100-percent/ 116 http://gvshp.org/blog/2013/02/01/ed-koch-1924-2013-and-the-village/ 117 http://observer.com/1999/06/christine-quinn-sets-it-straight-im-a-lesbian-yup-100-percent/
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of progressive and reform political clubs. Allegations of boss-style politics even touched upon Sen. Duane, who, The New York Observer reported, was seen as using Christine as a tool to expand his influence over West Side politics.118 Here was where Christine would find herself in 1999. She had finally launched her own political career in the capital city of New York. And she was already having to defend herself, her management style, her judgment, her temperament, and even the truth about her own sexual orientation. An activist, who worked as a community organizer and executive director of a major LGBT organization, doesnt just make it onto the City Council on her own ; it takes help from a lot of people. Some of her supporters saw in Christine something special, a charisma and a determination. But in this early review of her work in The New York Observer, there was a foreshadowing of things to come, that to win, one must be willing to go to any lengths, to pay any costs. She was already being compared to other LGBT politicians, who had unmistakably and unapologetically been able to shake up the system in their favor. Nothing could be off limits, not even the loss of a little sense of self-restraint. The young Ed Koch, for instance, spent years honing his irascible public persona by savaging opponents at community meetings. Being loud and flamboyant is a particular badge of honor in gay politics. In his 1991 Council race, for instance, Mr. Duane squeaked past the opposition in part by mailing a letter to 40,000 West Side households proclaiming he was HIV positive, The New York Observer reported.119

118 http://observer.com/1999/06/christine-quinn-sets-it-straight-im-a-lesbian-yup-100-percent/ 119 http://observer.com/1999/06/christine-quinn-sets-it-straight-im-a-lesbian-yup-100-percent/
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Before the old millennium came to a close, Christine had to run for reelection. Only a few months after Christine won that first special election in February 1999, she was on the November 1999 ballot again, this time to be elected serve a partial, two-year term to complete the remainder of what would have been Tom Duanes formerly full term.120 It was all technicalities now. Since she was an incumbent, Christine naturally had an easy re-election, and her campaign only needed to raise a mere $13,908.00 in contributions,121 thats how much of an easy time she had, back in the beginning. The average donation came out to be approximately $80.39.
120 http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/03/nyregion/1999-elections-city-council-though-heavily-outspent-
opponent-democrat-wins.html 121 http://www.nyccfb.info/searchabledb/SimpleSearchResult.aspx?election_cycle=1999&cand_id=204&cand_nam e=Quinn%2c+Christine+C
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Chapter 3
In her early years, Christine worked hard to cultivate a public image of someone true to the communitys progressive expectations. Only one month after she won the first February 1999 special election, Christine, Sen. Duane, an LGBT civil rights activist Brendan Fay, and three other activists were arrested during an act of peaceful civil disobedience. They were trying to make a St. Patricks Day Parade in the Bronx to be more inclusive of LGBT march participants.122 To defend mom-and-pop shops, Christine opposed a plan by Costco to open a big box store on 14th Street in Manhattan.123 She was critical of zone-busting development along 23rd Street in Manhattan, making the observation that the construction of so many tall buildings was remaking 23rd Street into the beginning of Midtown.124 She was among many politicians who expressed concerns about a condominium resolution that could potentially refuse accommodation to same-sex couples.125 When New York Citys Division of AIDS Services was egaging in practices possibly violating the confidentiality of HIV-positive clients, Christine stood up to expose and challenge the troubled city agency.126 And when a stage actor was run over and killed by a double-decker tour bus, Christine called for suspending the companys license to operate its tour buses. She partially rationalized the suspension based on long-time
122 http://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/15/nyregion/6-gay-marchers-arrested-at-st-patrick-s-parade-in-
bronx.html 123 http://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/19/nyregion/neighborhood-report-greenwich-village-teeth-bared- over-costco-s-plans.html 124 http://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/10/realestate/in-the-flower-district-a-crop-of-high-rises.html 125 http://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/10/nyregion/neighborhood-report-midtown-who-s-family-who-s- guest-condo-s-rule-draws.html 126 http://www.ny1.com/content/top_stories/4779/workers-at-aids-facility-leave-confidential-documents-on- sidewalk
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community complaints about the tour buses.127 And when a former Giuliani administration official out of office for four years was reported to be still receiving a car and driver paid for by taxpayers, Christine questioned the use of taxpayer money to chauffeur the investment management company executive.128 It seemed like Christine was doing right by the community, and her office made sure that there were headlines and sound bites as proof. The year 2000 was a federal election year, and it wasnt only Hillary Clinton who was running for office. Al Gore was running against George W. Bush to become president, and we all know how well that worked out for progressives and reform Democrats. In New York, regular municipal and state elections generally take place one year after the four-year federal election cycle. The voter turn-out for municipal and state elections, as expected, is much lower than during federal elections, and many voters skip the off-year elections. Although some states and municipalities try to coordinate elections to maximize voter participation,129 New York City does not. So, after Ms. Clinton was sworn into office as the new junior senator for New York during the aftermath of Bush v. Gore, everybody in New York shifted their focus to the mayoral and City Council races. Mayor Rudy Giuliani was serving out the final months of his second term. Because of term limits imposed by two voter referenda, he was prevented from running for office for a third term. The term limits law also applied to other major officeholders, including City Councilmembers.

127 http://www.nytimes.com/2000/05/23/nyregion/tour-bus-kills-actor-as-he-walks-on-45th-st.html 128 http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/14/nyregion/ex-official-uses-city-car-four-years-after-leaving.html 129 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_Day_(United_States)
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There was a lot at stake in the next mayoralty. The Giuliani administration had intentionally caused major setbacks for entire communities within New York City. Shameful acts of police brutality against minorities had aggravated racial tensions.130 The caustic mayor had violated citizens First Amendment rights on many fronts, and the litigation from his overreach led to several costly legal losses for the mayor and for New York City.131 And before Major Giulianis second term was over, a federal judge ruled that New York City had failed to provide services to thousands of people with AIDS in a decision that put the citys AIDS agency under a federal monitor132 for a period of three years.133 Progressives were looking for change. The 2001 municipal politics in New York started out as business as usual. Two mayoral candidates for the Democratic Partys mayoral nomination were accused of sending staff and campaign supporters to the meetings of an influential LGBT political club and making their representatives join the club as members, in hopes of influencing the clubs vote on its mayoral endorsement. New York City Controller Alan Hevesi sent at least six associates to join the Gay and Lesbian Independent Democrats (GLID). GLID was the political club formerly headed by Assemblywoman Debroah Glick, before she was elected to public office. Among the Hevesi operatives sent to infiltrate GLID was Christines father, Lawrence Quinn, who was considered to have a special place inside the LGBT community because his
130 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/march99/newyork30.htm 131 http://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/06/nyregion/giuliani-s-goal-of-civil-city-runs-into-first-
amendment.html 132 http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/20/nyregion/judge-s-ruling-puts-city-aids-agency-under-us- monitor.html 133 http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/21/nyregion/sparring-begins-on-oversight-of-aids-unit.html
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daughter is Christine. Remember, Mr. Quinn acted as Christines surrogate : he worked on campaigns in order to collect favors for his daughter. The other Democratic mayoral candidate, Public Advocate Mark Green, sent at least 22 supporters to infiltrate GLID. On both sides, many of the representatives sent to join GLID were straight. The last time such infiltrating was reported to have happened on this scale was 1993, when the dueling Democratic mayoral campaigns of incumbent David Dinkins and challenger Andrew Stein were said to have sent supporters to do the same thing, according to a news story in The New York Daily News. 134 Christines first years of the two partial terms she served would not count against her with respect to the term limits restrictions. She would be running for her first full term in public office in the 2001 election. Still, there were benefits to her incumbency. For example, in the 2001 race, she raised about half the contributions that she had raised in her contentious four-way race in the first special election in February 1999.135 In the fundraising cycle for the 2001 race, the myth that Christine was still an advocate for the people was reflected in the modest contributions she received. There was a $10.00 donation made by a New York City Housing Authority maintenance worker. Christine accepted $250.00 from the Affordable Housing PAC, Ltd., which doles out tens of thousands of dollars to politicians, even though New York City never builds up its supply of affordable housing units. Dick Dadey, the former executive director of ESPA, which lobbied for the redrawing of the City Council district common to both former Councilmember Duane and Christine
134 http://articles.nydailynews.com/2001-03-13/news/18170150_1_gay-political-club-lesbian-community-
endorsement 135 http://www.nyccfb.info/searchabledb/AdvancedContributionSearchResult.aspx?ec_id=2001&ec=2001&cand_id =204&cand=Quinn%2c+Christine+C
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around demographics so as to finally support an LGBT candidate, donated $250.00 to Christines 2001 campaign. There was no need to worry about Christine needing to run an aggressive campaign, nor raise serious money, because the myth of her advocacy work was still intact, all things considered. People still saw her as one of them. But, on the side, Christine was still taking money from lobbyists, real estate developers, and other consultants. This was a pattern that Christine established at the outset of her career as an elected official, and it would continue into this race. Christine raised $500.00 from Norman Adler, who was a partner of the lobbyist Emily Giske. Christine raise $1,000.00 from James Capalino, who heads up a lobbying firm that would later go on to represent developers of two of the most contentious real estate projects in Christines district a decade later. At the time, Dirk McCall worked for Capalino, and he made a contribution of $100.00 to Christines campaign. Mr. McCall would also go on to serve in various roles with LGBT agencies. Another notable contributor was Adam Rose, a developer of high- rise apartment buildings. He contributed $500.00 to Christines campaign. The myth that Christines crusade for public office to reform the system was giving way to taking money just like other politicians. These conflicts of interest were not going to stand in the way of Christines reelection. She was a political insider now. The run-up to the 2001 election, again, was following tried-and-true political machinations. Christine wrote an opinion-editorial piece for the Gotham Gazette, in which she previewed the emergence of her own self-motivated political ideals, a quasi-Quinn doctrine. She began to warn the public about a very real danger with
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New York Citys term limits law.136 In Christines mind, term limits would give lobbyists and corporate interests an unfair advantage over the political process at the City Council. Term limits would create a rotating door of novice councilmembers, who would be constantly replacing incumbents, who, in turn, would need to leave office after two full terms in office. In her opinion piece, Christine wrote that term limits did more harm to council staff than to elected officials, because the revolving door of elected officials would lead to a churn in staff. This was a confusing position to take. Why would staff matter more to Christine than the elected officials, who would be charged with voting on zoning issues ? The most controversial zoning issues involve the taking of public or common property for the private profit to benefit developers. How complicated would this dilemma be for councilmembers to analyze ? Like other aspects of Christines political philosophy, there was no consistency to it. And in the coming years, her flip-flops on important issues like term limits and real estate development would be critical to examine Christines penchant for political expediency and self-interest. The emerging Quinn doctrine on term limits was a political philosophy, which rested on the public service myth of politicians and their political staff. When she was an activist, Christine subscribed to the idea that powerholders were answerable to their constituents, but, once she became a political insider, Christines worldview on powerholders changed. Instead of having faith that politicians and their staff would have the fortitude to take action on demands from their communities, something about her first few years in political office transformed
136 http://old.gothamgazette.com/commentary/quinn.shtml
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Christine. She began to prefer for the idea of the public servant wiser than his or her constituency. Because term limits would restrict the advantages of incumbency for councilmembers, who were nominally the true legislative decision-makers, Christine wanted voters to shift their focus to political aides. Christine wanted voters to trust the judgment of the City Council staff -- to have blind faith that these unelected political insiders would have no binding legal obligation to do the right thing for voters. Public officials could come and go with the election cycle, but staff had an indeterminate value, and it was unclear why Christine was putting all her faith in staff. Rather than to strengthen restrictions on lobbying or patronage, or, more importantly, strengthen the enforcement of these restrictions, Christine wanted to spare any turnover on the hundreds of aides and central staff members caused by term limits. One could examine Christines change in philosophy as a product of identity politics. The great bargain the LGBT community made with Christine was that if she got elected, it could trust her to do the right thing. Christine never promised to be answerable to the community. She made campaign promises to get elected, of course, but she did not recite vows to respect the consensus of the community. This new philosophy of public service was in contrast to her time as an activist, when Christine was an activist citizen within social movements seeking more affordable housing or for increasing the healthcare response to HIV/AIDS. Back then, she supported citizens participating in their own governance. But along with her reflections on term limits, her outlook on citizen participation changed.
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As an official, she did not view participation as important. Writing about term limits, Christine pointed to the complicated example of the citys opaque land use laws.137 These laws favored wealthy real estate developers, who could afford expensive attorneys, consultants, and advisers. Although the public had some input, the publics input was nonbinding.138 Voters would have to trust the public service spirit of politicians. It was a catch-22. And Christines Band-Aid approach to a solution to eliminating undue influence from corporations, real estate developers, and lobbyists, given her background as a tenant activist, was to advocate that, among other things, the City Council staff be saved from the constant turnover in councilmembers political aides. We must work to preserve the expertise of the Council staff, she wrote.139 Either this marked a real public turning point for Christines relationship with voters, or it sounded like she was grasping at straws. Christine had promoted herself as a progressive, as a tenant activist -- how would she handle complex land use now that she was part of the political inside ? How realistic was keeping political aides going to be to fend off billionaire real estate developers and their armies of white-shoe law firm partners and other lobbyists ? Christine would have you believe that the character of political aides would make a difference, that all voters had to do was to trust unelected political actors in our government. One of the Christines unofficial political advisors was Emily Giske. Ms. Giske worked as a lobbyist at the very same time that she served as vice chair of the New
137 http://old.gothamgazette.com/commentary/quinn.shtml 138 http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/luproc/ulpro.shtml 139 http://old.gothamgazette.com/commentary/quinn.shtml
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York State Democratic Party, though she would sometimes be described as a political consultant to soften the negative connotation around her work as a lobbyist. During this time, she was also on the Board of Directors of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC).140 Ms. Giske partly rose to prominence in political circles because of her membership and activities in GLID, the often-infiltrated political club of which Christine was also once a member. The same lobbyists and their special interests which concerned Christine, would, over time, also come to encompass Ms. Giske. Back then, Ms. Giske served in a sense as a public official by virtue of her position within the state Democratic Party, and she used her position to endorse Christine during Christines campaigns for those early partial terms in the City Council.141 But even though Ms. Giske was sometimes described as having a superficial outlook on the direction of LGBT equality and on the evolution of the annual Heritage of Pride parade, also known as the Gay Pride Parade in Manhattan,142 Ms. Giske offered Christine legitimacy from within the state Democratic Party and from Ms. Giskes insider role as lobbyist and adviser to special interests. As a highly visible elected LGBT politician, Christine used her first few years as a councilmember to portray herself as being a champion for LGBT equality. If anybody was going to criticize Christine, they were going to be met with the admonition : Hush, shes here fighting for LGBT equality. We need her on the inside to pass new laws. Dont rock the boat ; otherwise you will jeopardize our chances at
140 http://www.hrc.org/files/assets/resources/AnnualReport_2001.pdf 141 http://christinequinn.tripod.com/endorsements.htm 142 http://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/25/nyregion/for-gays-party-search-purpose-30-parade-has-gone-
mainstream-movement-s-goals.html
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finally establishing our civil rights. And thus a double-standard emerged for Christine : she was going to, by and large, get a pass from LGBT activists, who were known to put pressure on nonresponsive government officials, because we were all waiting around for Christine to update the civil rights laws applicable to the LGBT community. One very prominent LGBT civil rights activist based in New York City described the negative impact that Christines election to City Council created for LGBT activists. Under her influence, he said, the community has gone from being mobilized to being demobilized. For this, he blamed the perception that, once a good politician was elected, there was no more reason for the community to be thoroughly engaged. After the community transformed into an organization to get Christine elected to replace Sen. Duane on the City Council, the community organization essentially dissolved. Rather than maintaining a voting public in a state of mobilized participation, Christines election led to the disempowerment of this voting public. The election cycle gives voters their biggest opportunity at direct participation in their own governance, as far removed as it is. Once the election cycle was over, voters retreated, and politicians brandished their badges of wise public servants, as Christine did in the time leading up to the 2001 election year. Rather than listening to the communitys demands for systemic progressive reforms to increase direct democratic participation, Christine would have total discretion to decide by herself when to propose legislation, which issues would get a priority, when to play an active role in causes, and what her legislative agenda would even look like. It would become difficult to believe that Christine once believed in direct
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participation, let alone, direct action. Indeed, the role of direct action in Christines political ascendancy would remain part of her activist myth, even though her leadership style no longer welcomed or encouraged citizen participation. Under Christines leadership, change would seem to come in incremental and random forms. In a rare display of national leadership on LGBT equality issues, Christine signed onto a consensus statement from New York LGBT elected officials, withholding her support from an LGBT march on Washington being called the Millennium March.143 The Millennium March, which took place over the last week- end in April 2000, was mired in controversy. The surviving lover of Barry Winchell, a private first class murdered because he was gay, was rebuffed by organizers of the Millennium March.144 Though it appeared intolerant for organizers to invite Mr. Winchells mother but not his transgender lover, the main causes for controversy were finances and transparency. Some of the week-ends events would benefit LGBT organisations, with the proceeds of one large concert going to fund the work of HRC. This was during the time when Ms. Giske served on HRCs Board of Directors. For Christine to join a small group of peers and basically tell the larger LGBT community to stay away from this large-scale, corporate-sponsored demonstration over criticisms of the demonstrations planning process was a big deal.145 Christine saw the potential for harm from planning that excluded grass-roots community groups and activists, and she acted in solidarity with her colleagues.

143
http://www.inform.umd.edu/EdRes/Topic/Diversity/Specific/Sexual_Orientation/Reading/News/march.html 144 http://www.nytimes.com/2000/05/28/magazine/an-inconvenient-woman.html 145 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/042900-01.htm
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This was when Christine was still showing the last of her community- organizer mindset. She still had sensibilities about putting the integrity of the decision-making process above reaching situational politically motivated results. Not only that, but Christine wanted transparency in the demonstrations finances. Money has been raised in the name of the LGBT community, but there has been no meaningful financial accountability.146 This was Christine in her rarest of form : taking a bold stand based on progressive ideals of increasing participatory democracy. Christine was arguing for giving the LGBT community a say in its own march on Washington. Being able to display leadership like this is rare in politics. Yet, Christine did. She was not afraid to stand up, at least in those early years, against attempts to shut out the grassroots participation of the LGBT community. Denied are grassroots activists like the ones who brought us ACT UP in the '80s and '90s, the Gay Activist Alliance in the '70s, and in the beginning, Stonewall itself, read Christines statement, and she said that exclusion was not acceptable. The statement that was issued by Christines office bore her chief-of-staff Maura Keaneys name and telephone number as the press contact. And the statement, with other opposition, had ripple effects on how the Millennium March would be examined. But already there was a dichotomy emerging in Christines political doctrine. On the one hand, she would begin to say that the direct democratic votes that had imposed term limits were dangerous and would lead to corrupt real estate developers taking advantage of unsuspecting freshmen councilmembers. And on the
146
http://www.inform.umd.edu/EdRes/Topic/Diversity/Specific/Sexual_Orientation/Reading/News/march.html
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other hand, she would still say that organizations could not have integrity unless there was grassroots support, participation, transparency, and accountability. When it came to government, Christine would claim public service as a purification of her motives. But when it came to organizing a large-scale LGBT demonstration in Washington, wiser public spirited leaders didnt count, it wasnt enough. Christine was able to make this distinction in her own mind, but she was not able to see the contradiction. True to the suspicions of Christine and others, the Millennium March turned out to be controversial. The demonstration on Washington was not a self-supporting effort. It ran up a debt of about $1 million that had to be forgiven, in most part, and wound up with over $300,000.00 in debt that could not be repaid.147 And Christine wasnt the only major LGBT activist in New York City to oppose the demonstration. According to The San Francisco Chronicle, Bill Dobbs, an attorney and member of several LGBT groups, helped to organize a group to oppose what he saw as a reckless demonstration. He also helped to launch a Web page to denounce the Millennium March.148 Once the Millennium March was passed them, LGBT activists returned their attention to working for LGBT equality in their local and state elections. Andy Humm is a journalist in New York City, and he has a long and distinguished career in reporting about LGBT equality. He could not be reached for an interview for this book. Less than two months after the failed Millennium March, Mr. Humm wrote a seminal article that was published in the Gotham Gazette under
147 http://web.archive.org/web/20010707023343/www.advocate.com/html/stories/842/842_mmow.asp 148 http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Gay-Rally-In-Washington-Bares-Deep-Divisions-2762139.php
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the headline, The State of Gay Rights in New York. In his survey of LGBT equality, Mr. Humm examined the progress that the movement for LGBT civil rights had made since the 1969 rebellion that started it all at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, located right in Christines City Council district. From the issues that Mr. Humm outlined, a guidepost emerges from which to examine one critical aspect of Christines leadership and political ethics : what she has delivered for the LGBT community. New York was supposed to be progressive, it was supposed to be a beacon for advancement of human rights. But despite New York's distinction as the birthplace of the modern gay movement, and its reputation as a haven, advocates for gay rights see the city and state as lagging behind much of the country in its legal protections and political support, Mr. Humm wrote in 2000.149 Mr. Humm has written about LGBT issues with foresight and wisdom from the perspective of setting out a vision. The issues he raised in his journalism then would make daily headlines a decade later on issues such as bullying in schools. In his rights survey, Mr. Humm described how New York State lacked, at that time, an antidiscrimination law that is specific to LGBT residents, which would outlaw anti-gay bias in jobs, housing, and public accommodations. 150 Mr. Humm noted that there was still an ongoing effort to add back in transgender protections to the New York Citys human rights law ; these protections were omitted 14 years earlier when Mayor Koch signed a homosexual rights bill into law.151 At the time of
149 http://www.gothamgazette.com/iotw/gayrights/ 150 http://www.gothamgazette.com/iotw/gayrights/ 151 http://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/03/nyregion/koch-signs-homosexual-rights-bill.html
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publication, Mr. Humms rights survey was predicting final passage of a state-wide hate crimes bill. After intense organizing, the bill would be eventually signed into law by Gov. George Pataki.152 In spite of the surprising breakthrough under a Republican governor, the passage of the hate crimes bill was not without controversy : it excluded protections for transgender New Yorkers.153 154 How long would it take LGBT leaders to address this 2000 omission, and what role would Christine Quinn have in that effort ? A critical item on the agenda for LGBT equality was the Dignity For All Student Act (DASA), which would require all school superintendents in New York state to take steps to deal with complaints of discrimination, or bullying, based on race, religion, or sexual orientation, etc. 155 As of the date of Mr. Humms report, no U.S. state had yet enacted marriage equality legislation that would extend marriage- based civil rights to loving and committed couples of the same gender. The closest the LGBT movement had come to accomplishing this as of 2000 was the success in Vermont, which, at that time, was the only state to confer civil unions on same-sex couples, which was supposed to be an inferior, but legally acceptable way to offer almost all of the rights to which a married man and woman are entitled, though stopping short of full legal marriage. And Mr. Humm warned that even if New York State residents wanted to enter into the civil unions offered in Vermont, there was federal legislation in the form of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which barred federal recognition of legal same-sex marriages performed in any state and gave the
152 http://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/11/nyregion/pataki-signs-bill-raising-penalties-in-hate-crimes.html 153 http://www.paulinepark.com/2010/06/millenium-march-reflections-by-a-transgendered-woman-of-color/ 154 http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/12/transgender-provision-is-sought-in-state-hate-crimes-law/ 155 http://www.gothamgazette.com/iotw/gayrights/
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other states the right not to honor such a contract. Even worse, as of 2000, Thirty- two states passed laws barring recognition of same-sex marriages performed in other states, even though no state or nation allows gay couples to obtain a marriage license. 156 At the time, one of the greatest local advancements in the civil rights of loving, committed LGBT couples was the granting of hospital and prison visitation rights, which were only recognized at the end of Mayor Kochs administration, according to Mr. Humms report. It was under the administration of the following mayor, David Dinkins, when a local domestic partnership registry was established. The victory in another, long battle was finally won under the administration of Rudy Giuliani, when it enacted legislation passed by the City Council to provide to the same-sex partner of a city employee the same benefits automatically afforded to a heterosexual city employees spouse. And to add to these gains, Mr. Humm pointed to a proposal that Christine was formulating, which would require contractors doing business with New York City to extend to the same-sex partners of contractors employees domestic partner benefits if those contractors provide spousal benefits to their employees. The year 2000 wasnt all that long ago, but that was it. The only issue that Mr. Humm had left out was the idea of an omnibus federal LGBT civil rights law, similar to one that was once introduced in 1974 by U.S. Representatives Bella Abzug and Ed Koch.157 In Mr. Humms report, hopes were being pinned on a new class of politicians being elected to government, like Christine, and fellow Councilmembers
156 http://www.gothamgazette.com/iotw/gayrights/ 157 http://www.thetaskforce.org/issues/nondiscrimination/narrative
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Phil Reed and Margarita Lopez, as opportunities for the LGBT movement to find legislative leadership to end de facto and de jure discrimination against LGBT New Yorkers. Yet, for all these gains, Mr. Humm pointed to resistance to the idea of same- sex marriage and to ongoing sensitivity around the St. Patricks Day Parade, which continued to exclude open LGBT participation ; these were raw, open wounds for the LGBT community that could not find a resolute political response, even from political allies.158 For the historical perspective that Mr. Humms writings offer, his 2000 report is especially valuable and can serve as a touchstone against which to measure Christines future performance in office with respect to LGBT equality issues. When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2000 in favor of allowing the Boy Scouts of America to continue to exclude gays, Christine, with a bold sense of courage and urgency, almost automatically took a very tough, public stance on the issue. Even though only a small percent of young boys pass through the Boy Scouts, as a rite of passage, it lives on in Americana as a sentimental, if archaic, symbol of character- and citizenship-building159 in spite of the groups policy of discrimination. Nevertheless, Christines response to the Supreme Court ruling was swift : she said that, based on the Boy Scouts exclusionary powers, New York City might be violating its own human rights laws by accommodating Boy Scouts meetings in the citys school buildings.160 Here, again, as in the statement she issued criticizing the Millennium March in Washington, DC, Christine was unafraid of
159 http://scouting.org 160 http://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/29/us/the-supreme-court-the-reaction-victory-has-consequences-of- 158 http://www.gothamgazette.com/iotw/gayrights/
its-own.html
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taking a dramatic position rooted directly on radical activist ideals. For the LGBT civil rights movement to build into a critical mass, more leaders would need to be bold and to reach for true equality under matters governed by civil laws. The LGBT community was investing a lot of its hope of a brighter future on leaders like Christine. But would Christine deliver on these expectations ? In spite of the temporary setbacks and the long road ahead, progress, if uneven and unequal, was still being made to advance LGBT civil rights, and politicians had begun to court the LGBT community as a voting block to help win elections. And this could be seen more and more in New York City politics. The following years Gay Pride Parade was continuing its path toward becoming more and more a corporate-sponsored event, meaning, it was now making a more noticeable shift to being tailored to corporate advertising budgets instead of LGBT equality issues. The Pride Parade was also becoming to be considered a politically safe event for all politicians to attend. In 2001, all six major candidates for New York City mayor took part, including two Republican mayoral candidates. As usual, it was the candidate, who marched alongside Christine and Sen. Duane, who garnered a lot of attention. That year, it was Mr. Hevesi, who was one of the politicians, who sent operatives to infiltrate GLID. The year 2001 was supposed to be a watershed year for New York City government. The term limits law, which was passed twice by voter referenda, was going to restrict politicians to two full terms in elected office. As reported in the Gotham Gazette, 36 out of the 51 members of the New York City Council were going
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to have to step down.161 Christine didnt have anything to worry about, because her first election was a special election to serve out the remainder of Sen. Duanes City Council term, so Christines first years in City Council would not count. Yet, she would benefit from being an incumbent, as could be seen from her fundraising results. Christine was now raising money from real estate developers and lobbyists without fear of criticism. She was learning that she could have it both ways : maintain her myth of being a peoples advocate, while also taking in special interest money. The grassroots movement against career incumbents -- whose only concern was reelection rather than accountability to voters -- was going to achieve something short of a wholesale dissolution of the New York Citys legislative body. While voters were fed up with incumbents, some of the municipal legislators werent going to take the forced retirement of so many members sitting down. What happened when term limits took effect, leading up to the 2001 municipal elections, is critical to understanding what Christine would face seven years later. In 2008, Christine would launch a very public campaign against term limits, but that was so far away into the future. Back in 2001, municipal legislators were faced with an agonizing frustration caused by term limits. And according to Christines contradictory political doctrine, Christine was more sensitive about the impact that term limits would have on the City Council staff than on politicians having to abide by voter referenda.

161 http://www.gothamgazette.com/searchlight2001/
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For a freshman political candidate to win elected office, many stars would have to line up, and that is because incumbents have many advantages provided to them by political parties. For example, in an analysis made by Lenore Chester for the Gotham Gazette in 2001, Ms. Chester noted that political parties protected incumbents from the dangers to reelection posed by any redistricting process. If the boundaries of an incumbents district are to be changed, political parties always intervened to make sure that the new districts are reconfigured so as to re-elect the incumbent ... . Another way that political parties helped incumbents was by erecting difficult barriers for challengers who tried to get on election ballots. This was done in various ways. First, incumbents benefited from the assistance of political party officials at the county and district level, the provision of organizational support from the political party, and the provision of opposition work against primary challengers. In New York City, candidates for public office must gather a certain number of signatures from registered voters on petitions in order to qualify to appear on the ballot. Political parties helped incumbents to collect enough signatures that would survive challenges, which is important, because political candidates and their supporters often raise questions with respect to the petition signatures collected by their challengers. Not only that, but political parties in New York, as elsewhere, also tend to nominate family members of incumbents to succeed incumbents162 as a way to make it more difficult for candidates without name recognition, outsiders, or reformers to win elected office.

162 http://www.gothamgazette.com/searchlight2001/feature3.html
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It is no surprise then that incumbents often run for re-election unopposed, wrote Ms. Chester. 163 But the advantages enjoyed by incumbents dont just stop there. Incumbents, especially legislators, are able to steer taxpayer money to projects that benefit their constituents, Ms. Chester wrote. 164 In New York City, councilmembers request annual disbursements of tax dollars to community groups, which are approved by the Speaker of the City Council.165 The approval process for, and the delivery of, member items, as these annual disbursements are sometimes called, are fraught with controversy, because the allocation can be based on political motivations. For example, taxpayer money could be steered to individuals or groups that would benefit an incumbents next reelection effort. Yet, the practice of using member items continued. Another major advantage that benefits incumbents of the New York City Council, for example, was a reserve fund controlled by the City Council speaker. In the beginning, the reserve fund was said to be used to correct errors or respond to emergencies, New York magazine would later report. But, over time, the allocations made from the reserve fund came to be regarded as political rewards to the supporters of the City Council speaker. 166 Not much was known at the time about some of these secret budgetary advantages enjoyed by incumbents, but New York City voters were, nonetheless, able to relate to and agree with the national anti-incumbency sentiment that led to the approval of term limits here in New York City. Progressive voters wanted politicians to focus on delivering social, legal, and
163 http://www.gothamgazette.com/searchlight2001/feature7.html 164 http://www.gothamgazette.com/searchlight2001/feature7.html 165 http://nymag.com/news/politics/46821/ 166 http://nymag.com/news/politics/46821/
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economic solutions -- not on protecting their incumbencies. And right here, the merging of two separate expectations by progressives would convey to Christine her political political authority. In Christines specific case, she was elevated from being a community organizer to a political aide to an agency figurehead to a politician in order to deliver on LGBT equality. Also, she was elected with the expectation from progressives that she would deliver reforms. As long as she was achieving legislative results, she would be fulfilling her mandate. But if a time came when her political agenda would deviate from progressive or LGBT values, Christine would risk losing her political legitimacy. A backlash began to take form in 2001 among some councilmembers : some incumbents wanted to overturn term limits. Incumbents wanted to keep running for office without restrictions. Councilmembers strategized to send up a test balloon on repealing term limits by way of a bill, known as Intro 880, introduced into the City Council by 22 members167 and sent to the Governmental Operations Committee for review and further action. On March 15, 2001, the committee met for a vote under immense pressure from incumbents supporting the repeal and outside groups wanting term limits to remain in effect.168 Speaker Vallone told the press at the time that he opposed the repeal, and, in spite of his personal opinions about the bill, he was adhering to a fair procedure of allowing the appropriate committee to review and decide the fate of the bill. The councilmembers, who favored repealing term limits, explained their motivation as maintaining the continuity and institutional

167 http://gothamgazette.com/thisweek/02.05.01.html 168 http://observer.com/2001/03/tech-is-dreck/
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memory of the City Council.169 For her part, Christine publicly told the Gotham Gazette in 2001 that she did not support the repeal of term limits.170 But the full City Council would not get a chance to vote on Intro 880. The bill was defeated in the Governmental Operations Committee by the narrowest of votes, 5-4. A freshman Republican councilmember from Staten Island, Stephen Fiala, stood up and gave a rousing speech in defense of the two voter referenda, which approved term limits. Although he did not agree with the concept of term limits, Councilmember Fiala voted against the repeal, because the voters, who decide who shall represent them in our representative form of government, chose to limit the terms of their representatives. His speech was inspiring, and parts of it were especially moving : Citizen apathy and frustration are not new to our nation -- or our city - but the level of contempt for and disengagement from our democratic institutions are new and pose a real threat to our way of life. Patriotism -- if it is understood correctly -- is not compatible with contempt for the institution of government. And Freedom -- if it is truly appreciated -- is not compatible with disengagement from your civic responsibilities. Only a fool exercises his or her right not to vote. In our democracy, Patriotism and Freedom are not mutually exclusive virtues, but rather they are intertwined and interdependent ingredients of the greatest experiment in representative democracy ever conceived by man. But they require commitment and appreciation. Thomas Paine understood this in 1776 when he declared, "What we obtain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly ; it is dearness only that gives everything its value." Ours is a representative form of government -- known as a republic -- meaning simply that people do not decide issues, they decide who shall decide.
169 http://www.gothamgazette.com/thisweek/02.26.01.html 170 http://www.gothamgazette.com/searchlight2001/term_chart.html
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As wrong as term limits are -- and they are -- the means prescribed in redressing this wrong are potentially worse. The death of our democracy is not likely to be an assassination but by ambush. It will be a slow extinction caused by apathy, indifference and undernourishment. As much as I disagree with the outcome of both referenda elections, I nonetheless recognize the importance of respecting the integrity of the electoral process. For if the integrity of the process is questioned then that slow extinction caused by apathy, indifference and undernourishment will only be accelerated. Our democracy hangs in the balance; its health is in jeopardy. Term limits need to be reconsidered and repealed. But this is not the means of doing so. It is with that hope -- and as Edmund Burke would charge us -- my best judgment that I vote NO.171 And with Councilmember Fialas vote and his impassioned appeal for virtues of calmness, civility, detachment, reasonableness, and concern for the long- term, voters who had twice approved term limits were going to have their wishes respected.172 By having instituted term limits through the direct democracy reform that was made possible by the gains made during the Progressive Era in the United States, namely, voter referenda, Councilmember Fiala was saying that voters had the final say on which politicians shall decide on their behalf. While he had serious disagreements with term limits and their effect on the continuity of certain elected government officials, the Republican from Staten Island was affirming the role of direct democracy in our representative form of government. Councilmember Fiala would become a modern-day defender of Progressive Era reforms. How fortunate and, at the same time, how telling, that in these polarizing political times,
171 http://www.gothamgazette.com/searchlight2001/fiala_transcript.html 172 http://www.gothamgazette.com/searchlight2001/fiala_transcript.html
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progressives in the liberal city of New York would find a crucial ally in the Republican Party. Not too long after his historic vote, Councilmember Fiala resigned from the City Council in order to accept an appointment made by Republican Gov. George Pataki to become the County Clerk of Richmond County, which covers all of Staten Island.173 This defender of the peoples voice was taken out of electoral politics. Thats how the party system dispatched him. All of this -- the efforts by incumbents to challenge the will of two voter referenda -- was playing out for Christine to see. She was a relatively new councilmember, but she was not an entirely nave newcomer to the scene. Christine was not an innocent, as one source said. She had already mastered the art of photo ops. And when she was a lowly chief-of-staff, she had an inside view to the machinations that determined the legislative agenda. Christine watched as the effort to overturn term limits was defeated, but this episode would inform her entire worldview : at any time, the City Council could blatantly act in a self-serving or self- dealing manner. For progressives, the self-dealing by incumbents was a violation of the reforms that tried to end corruption. The fight against corruption was a central underpinning of the movements ideals. Political parties put forth candidates, and candidates had an obligation to act in the best interest of citizens. And this meant that the political party apparatus had to carry out this ethic, not just the government itself. Elected politicians had a greater obligation, because governments were in charge of providing security and resources, administering justice, and ensuring
173 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/07/nyregion/the-2001-elections-the-council-new-look-shaped-by-the-
primary-comes-into-focus.html
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integrity in our representative form of democratic governance. But political parties were the source of leadership, and voters had rightly come to demand that candidates for public office had to be motivated to act for the greater public good, not in their own self-interests. And so where political parties failed on their duty to deliver reforms against corruption, it was up to citizens to create grassroots support for new leadership. As with the case with Councilmember Fiala, the hope of creating meaningful change would rest on freshmen politicians, who had the least vested interest in maintaining the status quo, as opposed to, say, Ms. Greitzer, the former councilmember against whom Mr. Owles once ran. Until she was finally unseated from office, Ms. Greitzer had served in office for 22 consecutive years. The problem with freshmen politicians coming up through the political party system was the same all over : could they come up without having to make deals with political gatekeepers, lobbyists, and special interests ? On some level, the experiment her supporters were making with Christines political career could be said to have been made decades ago with Ms. Greitzers reform-minded career, excepting the LGBT equality issues. As progressives in the West Village and in Chelsea -- and the LGBT community in all five boroughs -- looked to Christine, was she going to be the politician, who was really going to promote social, economic, and legal reforms and advancements ? Was she going to be different ? Early in 2001, New York magazine published a list of the top 101 New Yorkers, who were openly gay or lesbian and in positions of power.174 Christine was lumped in with Sen. Duane and three other politicians, who all came into political
174 http://nymag.com/nymetro/urban/gay/features/4425/
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office during the 1990s. Christines appearance on the list also put her name alongside Mr. Dobbs, the notable activist who had opposed the Millennium March ; Christines friend, Ms. Giske, the lobbyist and Democratic Party insider ; AIDS activist Larry Kramer ; and Allen Roskoff, an LGBT civil rights activist and political operative. Others, who appeared on the list, included out gays and lesbians with distinguished jobs in the arts, fashion, and publishing. The New York magazine piece described the list as an important touchstone in LGBT history, because gays and lesbians in important positions in government and business were developing the courage to come out of the closet. As the New York magazine article noted then, gays and lesbians did not find supportive environments in all industries. Finance and professional sports were singled out as especially unfriendly. And the New York magazine list made only one mention of a bisexual, the gossip columnist Liz Smith. In spite of growing transgender activism, New York magazine named none to its list. This combination reflected the uneven changes in social and cultural attitudes within the category LGBT equality. The courage of this incomplete, yet visible group of out gays and lesbians, and the one bisexual, was supposed to lead to a social revolution, to inspire others to come out of the closet. But what was that social revolution supposed to look like, and who was putting themselves out there to be the poster children for this revolution ? One of the keys to understanding the ethics of Christine was to observe and analyze to what extent she challenged the status quo, and how she allowed the process of conducting the citys business to serve as a conduit to facilitate a social transformation, like creating a safe and nurturing space for LGBT New Yorkers to
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come out, rise up through community organizing, and to train new leaders. One often neglected segment within the LGBT community were issues surrounding LGBT youth. Would Christine tackle the social determinants that caused LGBT youth to become homeless ? Was she going to take the easy route, to just serve as a token LGBT leader in politics, to basically be used for photo ops and sound bites ? Or was she going to really undertake the serious work of supporting community organizing and consensus-building in order to facilitate transformational breakthroughs -- not just for LGBT civil rights, but also on behalf of her progressive constituents ? A few months after the New York magazine story was published, Wall Street billionaire businessman Michael Bloomberg waved a rainbow flag and marched in that years Gay Pride Parade alongside the caustic Mayor Giuliani,175 who used cruel and aggressive tactics to attack the social safety net,176 manufacture budget shortages to threaten budget cuts,177 and, at least once, tried to defund New York Citys Division of AIDS Services.178 Mr. Bloomberg would become as paradoxical on LGBT issues as Mayor Giuliani was known to be antagonistic. Although Mr. Bloomberg had said that he believed that all discrimination was wrong, period, he said, at the time, that he would not support making marriage equally available to loving and committed LGBT couples. Even though by and large the laws that determined who could get married were written and enforced by state governments, Mr. Bloomberg was quoted in The New York Times as having said that
175 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/25/nyregion/a-parade-underscores-candidates-unity-on-gay-
issues.html 176 http://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/25/nyregion/judge-rules-against-city-on-welfare.html 177 http://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/27/nyregion/council-sees-more-revenue-for-the-city-than-giuliani.html 178 Bull, Chris. "Cutting It-Close : New York Citys mayor relents on AIDS budget cuts -- but for how long ?" The Advocate 14 June 1994: 20. Print.
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he had a laissez-faire approach towards marriage rights. I don't think it's the government's business to tell anybody who they should be married to or who they can marry, period.179 But because New York City was about to complete two terms under Mayor Giuliani, everyones hope was that power in City Hall would swing back to the Democratic Party, to allow the city to make up for the regression that progressives had experienced under Mayor Giulianis two terms. Given Mr. Bloombergs worldview that government should take a hands-off approach to social justice, his stopping short of full commitment to LGBT equality was one more warning signal to liberals in New York that the mayoralty had to return to a progressive Democrat. Christine and her team were supporting Mr. Hevesi. A different camp of Democrats were supporting Mr. Green. The hopes of making progressive gains were being pinned on stalwart Democrats, like Mr. Hevesi or Mr. Green, and on a new crop of leaders, like Christine. In the lead-up to the Democratic primary election for mayor, during the summer of 2001, voters saw the standard political flimflam of an average municipal election year, nothing that anybody hadnt seen before. Mr. Hevesi took a hit in the press over what he saw as a cost-saving approach to his campaign spending. Mr. Hevesi had a close relationship as both a friend and a client of a powerful political consultant, in Hank Morris, who was a name partner along with Mark Guma, the husband of Christines chief-of-staff, Ms. Keaney, in the political consulting firm of Morris, Carrick & Guma. Mr. Hevesi was operating a mayoral campaign with no official independent campaign headquarters and with only four paid staff members,
179 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/25/nyregion/a-parade-underscores-candidates-unity-on-gay-
issues.html
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according to The New York Times.180 Cloaked as one friend helping another, the arrangement with Mr. Morriss political consulting firm was providing substantial assistance to Mr. Hevesis campaign, and this arrangement was coming under serious criticism for its questionable ethics. Mr. Morris was providing Mr. Hevesi with use of office space for a campaign headquarters and the use of its office equipment. 181 It cannot be determined the value of other incidentals, such as the time of Mr. Morriss own paid office staff in the form of volunteers. The way that The New York Times described Mr. Morriss assistance to Mr. Hevesis mayoral campaign was either the ruthless exploitation of the city's campaign finance law by an unscrupulous campaign or the single-minded frugality of Mr. Morris. There was a larger danger to the electoral process, and The New York Times put the context of the Morris-Hevesi controversy in terms of the reforms instituted in the wake of President Richard Nixons blurring of electioneering ethics. Since Watergate, virtually every attempt to regulate campaign contributions and spending has been stymied by some politicians or consultants who have intrepidly poked a hole in the system -- including, it now seems, the New York City system, which its supporters have described as the best in the nation.182 Mr. Hevesis supporters defended this arrangement as a way for the Hevesi campaign to be able to funnel its resources into TV ads, while his critics judged this arrangement as a backdoor way for the Hevesi campaign to receive unfair financial support that was not being declared to the Campaign Finance Board. This was a similar charge that
180 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/22/nyregion/what-s-a-campaign-debt-between-friends.html 181 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/22/nyregion/what-s-a-campaign-debt-between-friends.html 182 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/22/nyregion/what-s-a-campaign-debt-between-friends.html
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was hurled at Christine during the 1999 special election campaign, when Ms. Keaney was being paid by the Duane campaign for the state Senate to work on his shoe-in campaign in the November 1998 election, even though Ms. Keaney was volunteering for Christines campaign in the February 1999 special election. Both the Duane and Quinn campaigns shared the same campaign office then, as were the Hevesi campaign and Mr. Morriss consultanting firm in the 2001 campaign. Wed been here before, but, this time, to progressive and reform Democrats, the size of assistance and the potential for external influence on a campaign were not so easy to overlook. City Council Speaker Vallone was one of one of the leading Democratic candidates in the primary against Mr. Hevesi, and Speaker Vallone was credited with being one of the authors of the campaign finance law in New York City, which limits influence of private money on candidates. 183 What critics found troubling with Mr. Hevesis arrangement with Mr. Morriss political consulting firm was the ethical dilemma that accepting unpaid help from a friend, who was a powerful political consultant : would favors be traded on a quid pro quo basis ? Were they deliberately trying to circumvent the citys campaign finance law ? Speaker Vallone told The New York Times, The whole point of the law was to make it a level playing field so that money doesn't determine the outcome. So if you can find a loophole, then the law is not doing what the law is supposed to be doing. For his part, Mr. Morris defended his actions, and he portrayed it as business
183 http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1553&context=ulj&sei-
redir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3Dcampaign%25 20finance%2520law%2520author%2520peter%2520vallone%2520nyc%26source%3Dweb%26cd%3D6%26v ed%3D0CFkQFjAF%26url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fir.lawnet.fordham.edu%252Fcgi%252Fviewcontent.cg i%253Farticle%253D1553%2526context%253Dulj%26ei%3DNDUuUJr7OqOEygGs0IDYBw%26usg%3DAFQjC NHViq_d2r0fdOXuLZegJFPex_l3_A%26sig2%3DP1MTfEiTe5CjwkkmJprdkQ#search=%22campaign%20finance %20law%20author%20peter%20vallone%20nyc%22
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as usual. The New York Times reported that, Mr. Morris said he was astonished by all the attention being paid to his unusual business arrangement, describing it as no different from the way he had served any of his other clients. 184 Eventually, Mr. Hevesis campaign was ordered to pay Mr. Morris an additional $240,000.00, in order to put an end to the controversy being caused by the appearance of a conflict of interest over Mr. Morris unpaid work on Mr. Hevesis campaign.185 And so it was during the summer of 2001, leading up to the primary elections, which were scheduled to take place on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. Candidates flooded the memberships of influential LGBT political clubs to get their endorsements, and one LGBT ally candidate was coming under fire for allegations that he was flouting the campaign finance law for possibly accepting free or cut-rate services from a powerful political consulting firm. You had Christine taking more campaign money from developers and lobbyists. This was the way that politicians and their consultants conducted political campaigns in New York City. If progressives saw anything wrong with this, it was difficult to intercede, because, as we have seen, political parties put up barriers to challengers, especially if they were reformers. Reformers challenged the status quo, and political parties no longer supported reformers, as seen with what happened to our hero, Councilmember Fiala. Elected officials, who stand up for reform, are banished into an invisible paper-pushing post out in Staten Island. At some point, early in their official careers, politicians figure out that the political system on the inside abhors reformers. Its not known, except to Christine
184 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/22/nyregion/what-s-a-campaign-debt-between-friends.html 185 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/17/nyregion/17FINA.html
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herself, when she figured that out for her own political career -- either when she was a political activist in her early youth, when she later became a campaign manager and then a political aide to then Councilmember Duane, when she eventually became an agency head at AVP, or even later than that, once she became a councilmember herself. But hers was a career that was supposed to lead to reforms. The premise of Christines political career, her whole raison dtre, was not her own political advancement. At its origins, her career was supposed to be all about her bargain with the LGBT community, with tenant activists, with AIDS activists, with womens rights groups, and with her progressive supporters. There was more than a sense that people pushed Christine up the ladder, so she could legitimately boost progressive causes, reforms, and LGBT equality. The year 2001 was also a critical year for an important development project, the High Line in Manhattans Lower West Side. The New York City Council approved an allocation of $125,000.00 of taxpayer money in the form of a grant to the Friends of the High Line. At the time, Christine found crucial support for the High Line from Councilmember Gifford Miller. 186 It would be the beginning of a valuable partnership between the two. The scope of the High Line project would nominally transform an old abandoned elevated railroad into an open public space and pattern it after a very successful and similar project undertaken in Paris, la Promenade plante. The High Line would be the first large-scale redevelopment project that Christine would help champion, and it would be from this project that she would learn the benefits of having political influence over real estate development projects
186 http://www.designtrust.org/pubs/01_PSM_Future_of_High_Line.pdf
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that would gentrify neighborhoods, inflate targeted property values, and enrich real estate developers. Already the owners of formerly downtrodden real estate in the Meatpacking District were slowly beginning to renovate or erect new luxury buildings. The Meatpacking District was playing catch-up to West Chelsea, which, by the late 1990s, was being transformed into an art gallery district led by the never- ending churn in real estate. The High Line project would act to give speculators affirmation of the impending gentrification of these formerly forgotten parts of Manhattan. The High Line project would foreshadow future zone-busting real estate development deals, which Christine would support. And as the business of real estate in her Council district was moving onward and upward, Christine knew enough not to let her former tenant and affordable housing activism stand in the way. If she was moved, she would write a letter on the communitys behalf to at least superficially protest the elimination of affordable housing, like she did in 1999 when the McBurney YMCA was on the verge of closing and displacing long-term residents.187 But the flood of new building, especially in the Meatpacking District, would be allowed, by and large, to go forward, and market rents would keep rising all across her Council district, displacing many low-income tenants. Gentrification had long ago come to SoHo ; now, it was coming to Chelsea, the West Village, and, eventually even to Hells Kitchen. And maintaining, much less expanding, affordable housing would remain an elusive ideal, not to be put on the political agenda, even in the face of market-driven real estate speculation.
187 http://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/17/nyregion/ymca-chelsea-sheds-its-tenants-34-men-used-single-
rooms-know-new-homes-will-be.html
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By 2001, Christine had become a professional at photo ops and token gestures that would give the impression of sincerity. The grand bargain that voters had come to make : to elect a former community organizer to political office was already backfiring. Christine was beginning to reflect the culture of incumbents. She began to exhibit the constant concern over reelection by making sure to appeal to powerful business interests pushing the High Line project, which would create vast private wealth for owners of expensive Manhattan real estate, instead of challenging authorities on behalf of powerless low-income constituents. As such, she was facing an easy reelection. And from the upcoming election, Christine would learn first hand the powerful advantages of being an insider. She was now an incumbent, with all the privileges and benefits. Christine had been facing a challenger in the Democratic primary for her City Council seat. Victor Mendolia was a community organizer and a member of the direct action group, ACT UP, and he had launched a campaign to run against Christine. The constant grumble over Christines early political career would continue : she was facing criticism over her decision-making process as an elected official from within the LGBT community. Mr. Mendolia, who could not be reached to be interviewed for this book, questioned in the press Christines ability to work with other Democratic Party activists. According to the Gotham Gazette, he pointed to the discord, which took place back during the 1999 special election, when Christine blew off an important political club, the Village Independent Democrats. He also criticized Christine over her leadership style, telling the Gotham Gazette that she had alienated many in the community and on the City Council. (Although not exactly specified, it can be
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deduced that Christines temperament was at issue.) But Mr. Mendolia eventually dropped out of the race because of health issues, and Christine ran for reelection with no challenger leading up to the primary. Christines only competition would be a candidate on the Republican ticket, Michelle Bouchard.188 Things were looking good, and, with each passing day, things were looking even better, for Christine. Hell would have to freeze over before voters in the Third City Council district of New York would ever elect a Republican, so Christine was, practically speaking, in a position of easily coasting to a win. On the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, New Yorkers would wake up, and the early birds would begin going to the polls at 6 a.m.189 -- it would be the day of the political party primary elections. Everybody was expecting just another day of business as usual.

188 http://www.gothamgazette.com/searchlight2001/dist3.html 189 http://www.gothamgazette.com/searchlight2001/dist8.html
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Chapter 4
On the morning of September 11, polling locations for the New York primary elections opened at 6 a.m., but they were ordered closed about five hours later, after Gov. Pataki declared a state of emergency190 and issued an executive order to close the polls.191 It would take a very long time for anybody, who lived through the horror of the September 11 attacks, to return to a normal life. In the immediate aftermath of the coordinated terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, New Yorkers, answering their own humanitarian call to give what they could to help the rescue and response effort, lined up outside St. Vincents Hospital in the Lower West Side of Manhattan, to donate blood. Doctors, nurses, and medics were prepared to receive a large influx of patients for triage at St. Vincents Hospital, the closest Level I Trauma Center to Ground Zero, to receive survivors. But the impacts of each jet on each of the Twin Towers, and the subsequent collapse of the skyscrapers, would create more casualties than survivors with immediate acute injuries. As each hour goes by, families are facing the terrible likelihood that their loved one is dead, Dr. Spencer Eth, the behavioral sciences unit director at St. Vincents Hospital, was quoted by CNN as having said that day. St. Vincents Hospital had treated hundreds of survivors,192 but there were thousands of people still missing. As time went on and it became apparent that there werent going to be many survivors, the friends and families of the victims at the World Trade Center posted flyers with the names
190 http://www.panynj.gov/wtcprogress/events-091101.html 191 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/12/nyregion/12ELEC.html 192 http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/12/medical.response/index.html
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and photographs of their missing loved ones on the outside walls at St. Vincents Hospital, hoping that their loved ones were lost instead of among the dead in the smoking and smoldering rubble at Ground Zero. While New York City, the nation, and the world were coming to terms with the horror of these acts of war, politicians were having to come to terms with the elections. Gov. Pataki had postponed the primary elections across New York State. Two days later, a special session of the state legislature rescheduled the primary elections to Tuesday, September 25. If run-off elections were necessary, then they would take place on Thursday, October 11.193 Mayor Giuliani had earned almost global sympathy and respect for his handling of the response to the September 11 attacks. Even though he was known for his antagonistic personality, within four days of the attacks, people began to openly call for the overturning of the term limits in effect in New York City, so that Mayor Giuliani could run for a third term in office, so he could continue to supervise the recovery. The people of New York City know Rudy Giuliani and they know he may have some warts, but they know that he's a very efficient and capable guy. I happen to think he's a wonderful leader. I'm wondering if they're going to repeal the term limits that keeps him from running again, Sen. John McCain told Jeff Greenfield on CNN.194 Eight days after the attacks, Sen. Clinton was interviewed on Larry King Live on CNN. Mr. King asked Sen. Clinton if she would support the extension of term limits to allow Mayor Giuliani to stay in office. Sen. Clinton praised Mayor Giuliani, but she said that she would not support the extension of term limits.
193 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/14/nyregion/14PRIM.html 194 http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0109/15/se.10.html
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You know, everyone -- everyone in the world, I think -- agrees that he has done a superb job. And not just where one would have expected it in his determination and courage, but his compassion, his caring and concern have really shown a bright light for a lot of people in this darkness. But I also think it is important to recognize that in a democracy, no matter how superb a person is, no matter how great a job he is doing, we have to believe in our democracy, in the rule of law. Elections are absolutely essential to how we conduct our affairs, and our country. And I would be concerned that we would upend that respect for the rule of law. I do hope and anticipate that the mayor will work every minute of the remaining days in his term, and then be given the kind of responsibility that will enable him to keep working for the city he loves and be, frankly, enlisted [in] the war against terrorism.195 Less than two weeks after the attack, journalists from the all-news cable TV channel NY1 and The New York Times co-hosted a forum for three of the leading Democratic candidates running for New York City mayor. All three -- Mr. Hevesi, Mr. Green, and Fernando Ferrer -- said term limits should not be extended for Mayor Giuliani. 196 For about two weeks after the attacks, Mayor Giuliani was publicly avoiding answering press questions about whether he supported the overturning of term limits so that he could serve another term as mayor. According to a press report by Eric Fettmann in The New York Post, Mayor Giuliani was playing coy with reporters. The problem right now is that what started as the mayor being carried along on a "keep Rudy" public groundswell is starting to look like an ever-evolving series of back-room political machinations by everyone concerned -- the mayor included. Asked publicly about his decision, Giuliani piously insists he has "not had time to think about it" and says this is not the time to talk politics.
195 http://edition.cnn.es/TRANSCRIPTS/0109/19/lkl.00.html 196 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/23/nyregion/23PRIM.html
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But top advisers Randy Levine, Randy Mastro and Joe Lhota have all been working the phones to the news media pushing the "keep Rudy mayor" effort along. And the mayor himself took time out over the weekend to record a late automated phone message for comptroller candidate Herb Berman.197 For all the confusion that the postponement and rescheduling of the primary and run-off elections were causing, Mayor Giuliani was now throwing the elections into turmoil, a popular word used to describe the effect of the effort to extend term limits in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Speculation focused on whether the state legislature or the New York City Council would overturn the term limits law. A spokesman for the New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said that the speaker believed that if voters wanted to repeal the term limits law, then the voters should do it via another voter referendum.198 But there would not be enough time to do that. The Los Angeles Times reported that Mayor Giuliani and his political advisers were looking for novel ways for Mayor Giuliani to stay in office. One alternative approach that Giuliani is said to be exploring calls for a power- sharing arrangement permitting him to stay temporarily in office while a new mayor learns the ropes, a veteran political observer said.199 Even though Mayor Giuliani had been doing a great job at seeming to keep the city together, he was letting his ego get in the way to believe that a newly elected mayor would enter into a power-sharing arrangement with the former officeholder. But peoples emotions had become out of touch with reality -- apparently, even the emotions of our political leaders. It seemed that Mayor Giuliani thought that the next mayor would
197 http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/item_i57kHjPYJ3gs31o1ZWBlcO 198 http://articles.nydailynews.com/2001-09-24/news/18367548_1_term-limits-mayor-giuliani-repeal 199 http://articles.latimes.com/2001/sep/27/news/mn-50551
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be illegitimate without validation from him alone. Mayor Giulianis extreme attachment to public office showed why it was important to have integrity in orderly election succession. Elections could be corrupted if voters were deceived into believing that one politician had more authority than other political candidates, solely because of his or her celebrity -- or incumbency. Councilmembers, who had just failed to overturn term limits, were all witnessing one more attempt to circumvent the two voter referenda governing term limits. And among those looking on was Christine. It was into the belly of this whale that Christine had descended. Could she be counted on to remember why she went into politics ? The outcome of the 2001 elections was a setback for professional politicians and led to a nearly wholesale turnover of the City Council. Mr. Bloomberg was ushered into power over other candidates, who were seasoned city administrators, continuing Republican control over City Hall. Of the 51 seats in the City Council, 37 members were going to be serving in the municipal legislature for the first time. Some new blood was coming into the City Council. One of the fresh faces chosen by voters was John Liu. But because in New York some politicians are known to shuttle between elected offices in Albany and New York City during their political career, some of the new councilmembers had actually once been state legislators, like Albert Vann, Melinda Katz, and Larry Seabrook, among others. Three new councilmembers were the children of retiring councilmembers.200 Once the new City Council would convene in the new year, many junior councilmembers would find themselves in positions of leadership, including Christine.
200 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/07/nyregion/the-2001-elections-the-council-new-look-shaped-by-the-
primary-comes-into-focus.html
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And in the days and weeks after the September 11 attacks, as the city would try to put on a strong face and deal with false bomb threats, real anthrax powder scares, and still more terrorism fears, one of Christines closest friends, the successful Albany lobbyist and Democratic Party official, Ms. Giske, would arrange for Christine to meet a new girlfriend. After Christine had used her first longtime companion, Ms. Morrison, to get elected in the first February 1999 special election, Christine had ended their relationship. But now, in the aftermath of the attacks, Christine was to find love.201 As she moved up into a leadership position in the vacuum created by term limits, Christine would find herself as a focal point in voters demands for checks and balances on the incoming Bloomberg administration. Could Christine lead the charge and call for a restoration of progressive ideas in our government ?

201 http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/council_speaker_christine_quinn_yjq8Ki9FCdYi7cK2suEjWL
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Chapter 5
The utter trauma of September 11, as psychologically devastating as it was, would become a tsunami that would go on to create economic, political, and legal disasters, too. And some people would thrive in the aftermath of the attacks. Mayor Bloomberg was so wealthy -- his fortune was estimated to be $4 billion in 2001202 -- that he forewent the opportunity to move into Gracie Mansion, opting instead to continue occupying his luxurious Upper East Side mansion, a decision that critics like Fran Lebowitz would later say was a warning sign of the mayors imperious attitude toward the less fortunate.203 Not only that, but the mayor-elect had spent over $50 million of his own wealth to self-finance his campaign.204 The flouting of the citys reform-oriented campaign finance laws that everybody howled about, such as when Mr. Morris was helping Mr. Hevesi for little or no cost, was being openly run around by Mr. Bloomberg. But the billionaire mayor-elect had found a situational narrative for justification : his business acumen would help the city recover from the economic devastation of the September 11 attacks. Like Mayor Giuliani before him, Mr. Bloomberg was putting situational ethics over process. The indisputable truth was that New York City had suffered real economic shocks, and that was the justification Mr. Bloomberg used to violate the spirit of taking money out of politics. In his argument for self-financing his own campaign, Mr. Bloomberg was resting on the age-old reasoning of the wise, public-spirited elite -- we had to put our trust in him, that he would do the right thing.
202 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/07/nyregion/man-in-the-news-finding-a-new-mission-michael-rubens-
bloomberg.html 203 http://christine-quinn-sold-out.blogspot.com/2012/08/fran-lebowitz-ows-christine-quinn.html 204 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/08/nyregion/2001-elections-campaign-finance-record-spending- bloomberg-raises-questions-about.html
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The citys finances were in more severe shambles than reported. Mayor Bloomberg faced an almost $5 billion hole in the city budget. But the problems in New York were not just municipal in nature ; there were also national implications. The attacks would spur an endless and unaffordable war on terror, and civil rights and civil liberties would be diminished in the paranoid and partisan mindset of militant Republican aggressors in Washington. And as New York would forever anchor one focus in this endless elliptical churning of politically motivated fear- mongering, attention would always focus on City Hall : would the mayor and City Council enable a rising domestic militaristic response, or would New York set an example of reason ? While progressives across the nation looked on in disgust and disapproval as Democrats in Washington did nothing to stand up to the Patriot Act, progressives across the five boroughs would keep waiting for New York City Democrats to do something about the onslaught of regressive policies about to be unleashed here in the city. After about six weeks in office, Mayor Bloomberg began to circulate plans to slash $1.8 billion from the city budget. And even though first responders, like the FDNY, and Level I trauma centers, like St. Vincents Hospital, had proven to be critical in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, Mayor Bloomberg would launch into what would become his annual effort to slash and burn the number of firehouses and firefighters in New York City.205 Safety-net hospitals would become targets of more reckless, short-sighted efforts to just slash government budgets. To cut costs, some parts of the citys recycling program would
205 http://articles.nydailynews.com/2002-02-13/news/18198138_1_cost-of-living-wage-increases-city-hall-
spending-plan
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easily be suspended, and future taxpayers would be saddled with debt that was borrowed to finance regular city operations.206 By the end of 2002, taxes would be raised by an incredible 18% for property owners,207 but, over time, the regressive impact would disproportionately fall upon renters, who would face an even larger net increase due to the relentless compounding of annual increases for those in rent-stabilized apartments and the out-of-control free market rents in New York. Other social safety net programs, like senior citizen centers, came under attack and would remain targets for annual budget cuts by Mayor Bloomberg. 208 209 When the City Council reconvened after the start of the new year, the council elected a new speaker : Gifford Miller. Speaker Miller had been the councilmember, who had helped Christine pass the special grant to fund a study for the development of the High Line. He was elected to Speaker after running on a strategy of helping to elect many of the new candidates running for City Council. Of the 25 candidates who he had supported, 13 won their elections. The New York Times reported that those 13 incoming councilmembers were predisposed to support his speakership.210 Speaker Miller ran a parallel strategy to find more support among other councilmembers. To do that, Speaker Miller turned to the support of Democratic Party leaders of Queens and the Bronx, who, in turn, put pressure on their corresponding councilmembers, to support the new incoming speaker. One new councilmember, David Yassky, told The New York Times, I think its unfortunate that
206 http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/21/nyregion/city-hall-avoids-deep-cuts-but-full-bill-may-come-
later.html 207 http://articles.nydailynews.com/2002-11-24/news/18202256_1_property-tax-tax-hike-mayor-bloomberg 208 http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/21/nyregion/city-hall-avoids-deep-cuts-but-full-bill-may-come- later.html 209 http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-02-18/local/28628713_1_budget-cuts-daycare-budget-plan 210 http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/08/nyregion/upper-east-side-councilman-has-speaker-s-job-all-but- won.html
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it was brokered by the party bosses, referring to Mr. Millers speakership.211 And Christine learned to really broker leadership positions from this experience. Christine had a close working relationship with Speaker Miller, and she provided crucial support to the new speakers campaign. Indeed, Christine was described to be part of the war room cast of characters engineering Mr. Millers speakership.212 In return, she was rewarded with her choice of a chair appointment to the Health Committee. 213 Committee chair appointments were coveted not just because of the influence that the positions afforded, but also because leadership appointments also come with stipends, or lulus, a colloquial term for the cash payments that are given to councilmembers in leadership posts in-lieu-of expenses that the leadership role may cause to be incurred. For her support in the speakership campaign, Christine received a $15,000.00 lulu in connection with her Health Committee chair appointment.214 All this is to say that Christines inside strategy to bring about progressive reforms would get co-opted by a political system emphasizing the advancement of high-ranking incumbents instead of developing or implementing social, economic, or legal reforms. What is more, Christine was beginning to go along with the broken system that decides who will become Speaker of the City Council. Rather than being a system where the councilmembers decide who will be their leader, the entire system hinges on political party bosses of certain counties. It would be
211 http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/08/nyregion/upper-east-side-councilman-has-speaker-s-job-all-but-
won.html 212 http://gaycitynews.com/gcn_453/christinequinn.html 213 http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/16/nyregion/council-speaker-plans-to-cut-stipends-for-himself-and- others.html 214 http://www.gothamgazette.com/searchlight/council_stipends.shtml
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councilmembers, who would be carrying the voters mandate, but Christine would side with a system where political bosses would get to decide the leadership of the City Council. The arrangement that Speaker Miller made with the county bosses in Queens and in the Bronx was that if the county bosses supported his speakership, Speaker Miller would, in exchange, appoint councilmembers loyal to the respective party bosses as chairs of the City Councils most powerful committees. For example, the Queens County Democratic political boss, Thomas Manton, was promised that councilmembers loyal to him would be named as chairs of Finance Committee and the Land Use Committee. The Bronx County Democratic political boss, Robert Ramirez, was seeking the chair position on Land Use Committee for a councilmember loyal to him. Alternatively, it was reported that Mr. Ramirez was willing to accept a combined post of deputy majority leader and Housing and Buildings Committee chairman.215 As Councilmember Yassky pointed out, the county bosses would decide, not the councilmembers recently elected by the voters. As a self-described progressive, Christine ought to have fought for a system that considered voter sentiments in the election of the legislative leadership. But Christine now had a personal financial incentive to go along with allowing county political bosses to decide the speakership. When there was money involved, Christine would throw the progressive ideal of increasing direct voter participation under the bus. Early in his administration, it became apparent that Mayor Bloomberg would two-time LGBT equality. He supported the exclusion of LGBT participants in the
215 http://articles.nydailynews.com/2002-01-08/news/18198023_1_term-limits-speaker-committees
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annual St. Patricks Day Parade on Fifth Avenue. This early transgression prompted Christine to speak out against Mayor Bloomberg. If the mayor actually analyzed the history of the struggle, he would see that his decision is wrong, Christine said, back in 2002. Many people have tried to work with the Ancient Order of Hibernians from within, and it has been proven that it doesn't work. Well-respected Hibernians have tried and couldn't. No reason to believe this mayor can.216 But Mayor Bloomberg would find a way to triangulate his way around early LGBT critics by marching in an LGBT-inclusive St. Patricks Day Parade in Queens, founded and organized by Brendan Fay. "This is great," was Christines reaction to The New York Daily News, after it was announced that Mayor Bloomberg was going to march in the LGBT- inclusive St. Patricks Day Parade. The mayor was learning to appease his critics among the LGBT community and, at the same time, cozy up to hard-core Catholics, who favored a policy of exclusion against LGBT parade participants. "I still think marching on Fifth Ave. is a mistake, Christine was quoted as having said about the mayors double-dealing, adding, but I think marching with us in Queens is the right thing to do."217 With the issue of the St. Patricks Day Parade, Mayor Bloomberg would learn how to diffuse political criticism by finding situational supporters among vocal constituency groups, in this case, Mr. Fay. And Christine, who was watching Mayor Bloomberg embrace situational ethics, would be there to help the mayor get out of some of his difficult positions. This would be the beginning of Christines subjugation to Mayor Bloomberg.

216 http://www.gothamgazette.com/civilrights/feb.02.shtml 217 http://articles.nydailynews.com/2002-02-06/news/18191901_1_day-parade-marching-mayor-bloomberg
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When it would come to one of the greatest civil liberties problems of our time -- an issue that takes a lot of understanding, reading, and exploration -- whether the New York Police Department should be allowed to weasel out of a court-supervised order known as the Handschu Agreement, no progressive or liberal politician would be willing to stand up to the NYPD. What came to be known as the Handschu Agreement was a 1985 court settlement that stemmed from a 1971 trial of radical civil rights activists, which revealed that the police were infiltrating groups and spying on activists. This agreement forbade police from monitoring the lawful political activities of activists and protesters. Because of New Yorks size and the focal point it became on the war on terror, expanding the NYPDs powers came to be portrayed as important to national security, with the no-win accusation of, Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. Even though time and time again, it would come to be revealed that the NYPD had a perpetual pattern of misusing its authority to suppress political dissent, politicians were trying to rally support around expanding police authority without supervision. And just like Mayor Bloomberg had found in Christine a situational supporter on the St. Patricks Day Parade issue, the mayor would continually turn to political enablers, who would offer him situational support on the controversial issue of excusing aggressive NYPD tactics. In the case of loosening the restrictions of the Handschu Agreement, Mayor Bloomberg would find support from a former mayor, Ed Koch. Former Mayor Koch had a controversial relationship with LGBT activists. Community leaders, such as Larry Kramer and Allen Roskoff, blamed Mayor Koch
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for not doing enough in New York Citys initial response to the AIDS pandemic. Critics of Mayor Koch said that although that Mayor Koch was widely thought to be a closeted gay man, his shame and lack of courage on LGBT issues made Mayor Koch avoid having anything to do with dealing with AIDS out of fear of being associated with what, in the beginning, was known as a gay disease.218 In fact, in the time before HIV/AIDS was better understood, the then-new and unexplained cluster of sick and dying gay men was being described by a proposed name : the Gay-Related Immune Deficiency, or GRID. Mayor Koch had served three terms as mayor of New York City, and his own arc of politics should have informed him to make wiser choices. Indeed, Mayor Kochs rise to political prominence had been built on a platform of opposing machine-style politics.219 But over the years, Mayor Koch evolved into a powerful politician, whose own mayoral administrations had become beset by corruption scandals, and his history of throwing his own community and his progressive ideals under the bus made him an ideal situational supporter to Mayor Bloomberg. In Mayor Koch, Mayor Bloomberg had found an important situational ally. What kind of government do we have, when former office holders, who no longer have any public mandate, can exert such regressive influence on our government ? How could this be allowed ? In 2002, the beginnings of increased domestic surveillance in New York City can be traced back to Mayor Bloombergs appointment of David Cohen, a former high-ranking CIA intelligence and operations official, to a newly created post of

218 http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/features/2423/ 219 http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2009/10/clip_job_koch_f.php
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Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence.220 Even as the economy was in free-fall, Mayor Bloomberg prioritized Mr. Cohens appointment over even trying to patch up the $5 billion hole in the New York City budget. And as national political machinations allowed paranoia to triumph over civil rights and civil liberties, the general consensus of municipal politicians continued to be to refrain from imposing an independent monitor over the NYPD. Police would begin a decade-long effort to initiate surveillance of innocent people of faith and would expand a controversial tactic known as stop-and-frisk. How would Christine respond to these civil liberties and civil rights violations ? What never seemed to make sense in a city like New York was that even under the recent oppositional aspect of a Republican mayoral administration, the City Council would always be composed of a super-majority of Democrats. When the political cards are so stacked in favor of the political party that would seemingly support progressive reforms, what would explain the failure to make advancements on difficult social, economic, and legal problems ? And this is where political accountability for stagnation and regression rolls up to our Democratic political leaders. As Christines career began an ascendant trajectory as a consequence of the imposition of term limits, opportunities for making advances would be lost, past achievements would become unraveled, and new grassroots social movements would necessarily need to take shape to pressure progressive office holders. What

220
http://www.nyc.gov/portal/site/nycgov/menuitem.b270a4a1d51bb3017bce0ed101c789a0/index.jsp?pageID= nyc_blue_room&catID=1194&doc_name=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nyc.gov%2Fhtml%2Fom%2Fhtml%2F2002a %2Fpr020-02.html&cc=unused1978&rc=1194&ndi=1
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explains this contradiction, and how would Christine maneuver through these political obstacles ? Christine Quinn always identified with the more progressive or liberal wing of the LGBT Democrats, the group I count myself among, said Phil Ryan, the public relations consultant who was a former member of Chelsea Reform Democratic Club. From his work in civic politics, Mr. Ryan had observed Christines work over many years. But, in the years to come, how would Christine handle the challenges that would face New York City ? Before 2002 was out, the City Council would once again participate in still yet another effort to change the term limits law. In 2003, the NYPD would thwart a huge anti-war demonstration. In 2004, the NYPD would again thwart massive protests, this time against the Republican National Convention. Zone-busting real estate deals would be proposed by developers, who were seeking support from the billionaire enabler mayor. These projects would propose to tear up the special social fabric of New York City. On whose behalf would Christine advocate, neighborhood activists or real estate developers ? Andrew Berman, a former chief-of-staff to Sen. Duane, would emerge as a leading voice for historical preservation, because Amanda Burden, the socialite City Planner under Mayor Bloomberg, would recommend so many zone-busting projects that a stronger preservation movement would be needed. Tenant issues would come to the fore as large affordable housing complexes, such as Starrett City, Stuyvesant Town, and Peter Cooper Village, would be put up for sale. How would Christine, with her self- proclaimed tenant advocacy background, handle these issues ? And how many advancements would the LGBT community make under Mr. Humms detailed 2000
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analysis of civil rights ? What would be Christines involvement and contribution to making advancements on those and other LGBT civil rights issues ? New York State and New York City would begin a campaign to close hospitals as a way to shred the social safety net and to indiscriminately cut governmental budgets. Later, Christine would launch her own campaign for a citywide leadership position. How would that work out for her progressive and LGBT constituencies ? Incumbent politicians would still yet once more revisit the issue of term limits in 2008. How would Christines chief-of-staff, Maura Keany, contribute to Christines record of reforming integrity in government ? A political scandal would erupt and nearly cost Christine her leadership role. And after the near collapse of the global economy, a massive global grassroots movement demanding political, economic, and social reforms would focus on corruption on Wall Street right about the time that Christine would begin a full-throttle effort to curry favor with big business political donors, including real estate developers and financiers from Wall Street. Over 50 years ago, Carol Greitzer and other members of the Village Independent Democrats political club organized to vote out the remnants of Tammany Hall from New York City politics, only for Ms. Greitzer to become entrenched in the City Council for 22 years, until Tom Duane took her place, which he then turned over to Christine. It's been shown that voters can organize to vote political bosses out of office. Voters imposed a simple system of checks and balances to prevent entrenched politicians from becoming 22-year incumbents, like Ms. Greitzer, or 15-year incumbents, like Christine. And as Christine would carry forward her initial mandate to fight for equality and reforms, how would equality
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and reforms be reflected in her governance at City Council ? And how would Christine deal with lobbyists, like her best friend, Ms. Giske ? More people would begin to question whether Ms. Giske would unduly influence Christine. At the dawn of what would become the Bloomberg era, Christine was moving into a very powerful position as a quasi-public advocate. Would she lean forward to call for reforms in transparency and accountability, like she did when she opposed the Millennium March in Washington, DC, or would she stall and lose opportunities to make bold advances, as when she watered down the recommendations in the police brutality commission under Mayor Giuliani ? With the chronology of her formative years in New York City politics firmly established and with an overview of the advantages enjoyed by incumbents, the rest of the story would be an analysis of the challenges Christine would confront. In the coming years, New York City politicians would confront the major issues of our time : public safety, runaway healthcare costs, income and wealth disparities, and the enduring problems of discrimination and inequality. As each of these issues would be examined, voters would experience less and less of a say in the matters of their own governance. Looking forward from 2002, voters would ask who would be responsible for upholding -- or betraying -- the progressive tradition in New York City government ?
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Chapter 6
With an overview of her early years on New York City political scene complete, what follows is an overview of the challenges Christine would confront during Mayor Bloombergs time in office. Four broad areas of concern would emerge under the Bloomberg-Quinn administration. The first would cover the decline of affordable housing. The second would be an examination of the police department as a threat to public safety. The third would encompass violations of civil rights and civil liberties. Finally, the Bloomberg-Quinn administration would be examined for the declining state of public health. Although Christine was only chair of the City Council Health Committee when Mayor Bloomberg began his first term in office, eventually she would take her place as Mayor Bloombergs greatest enabler, so the citys political response to these four major areas would require sign-off from Christine before Mayor Bloomberg would be allowed to carry out his agenda. The three-pronged test that would apply to Christines political ethics would be simple, but the results would be damning to the assessment made of her political career. First, each major issue would be examined to construct Christines influence -- the capacity to be able to shape actions -- over the people, who had a stake in determining the citys response to its major problems. Second, each major issue would be reviewed to layout Christines authority -- the actual governmental powers at her disposal -- over the citys actual response to major problems, or over other people, who would be the decision-makers. Third, Christines response would be reviewed to identify whether her ideas would advance a progressive solution to
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the citys problems. The first might be made possible as a result of perceptions about the force Christine could exert over others, the second would be made possible by her actual position as an elected official, and the third would be to stack her actual response against what had been historically made possible under the progressive banner versus the business as usual approach of modern political flim flam. Michael Bloomberg began his mayoralty under the auspices of being a successful self-made billionaire businessman. He was elected with a mandate to help New York City out of the economic black hole caused by the September 11 attacks. The idea was that he would play the role of the noble public servant, who was wiser than his constituency, and his motivation was to help apply his business expertise to city government. Indeed, Mayor Bloomberg would take office with a net worth estimated at $4 billion dollars,226 and, by the time of his final year in office, his net worth would be estimated at $27 billion.227 Mayor Bloomberg used his successful accumulation of wealth as the only measurement that counted that he must be doing something right, but years later, the cultural and social critic Fran Lebowitz would make this observation about Mayor Bloombergs wealth, No one earns a billion dollars. You steal a billion dollars.228 If one followed Ms. Lebowitzs logic, these kinds of grand transfers of wealth would have to come at the expense of others. As Mayor Bloombergs greatest political enabler, where would Christine find herself in this epic and disproportionate redistribution of wealth ?
226 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/07/nyregion/man-in-the-news-finding-a-new-mission-michael-rubens-
bloomberg.html 227 http://gothamist.com/2013/03/04/mayor_bloomberg_is_the_13th_richest.php 228 https://twitter.com/heathr/status/158750857972813825
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In her role as a municipal legislator, Christine would be deeply rooted in the routine issues that New Yorkers faced every day. Because Christine began her career as a tenant activist and she later embraced the badge of being a progressive, it was expected that she would lead the charge on protecting and increasing access to affordable housing. It wasnt just voters, who had expectations of Christine. When Sen. Duane passed the baton to Christine, everybody had high expectations of her. At the inception of her career as an elected official, following her win in the City Council race during that first February 1999 special election, observers zeroed in on the fact that Christines district was also the heart of the tenants rights movement, because people fall in love with the neighborhoods in the 3rd District and dont want to be forced out. But even back then, in the very beginning, there was reason to worry about Christines fortitude. Sen. Duane began to predict trouble ahead. Its going to be hard for her, Sen. Duane told The New York Daily News in 1999. Development pressures are greater than theyve been for the past 15 years because the market is so hot, hot, hot.229 The concern was already on peoples minds as to whether Christine would be able to withstand the pressures from real estate developers. One way to examine Christines commitment to her roots as a tenant activist would be to see if she would be committed to the cause, or if she would practice a doctrine of selective advocacy. Early on, Christine was visible in the community when she used to be an organizer for the Housing Justice Campaign in 1989 ; when she worked to organize alongside tenant activists like Jane Wood when she was
229 http://www.nydailynews.com/building-ties-bind-new-councilwoman-quinn-common-good-article-1.827902
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managing Tom Duanes successful campaign for City Council in 1991 ; and, later, when Christine wrote a letter expressing her displeasure with the planned closure and displacement of long-term residents from the McBurney WMCA in 1999.230 In these and other instances, Christine learned how to use the press to portray a myth of engagement. She would use her presence at media events to fluff her tenancy work. These media placements could be a powerful tool to help shape public opinion and to apply political pressure on landlords and developers. But was Christine only going to serve up an appearance of being an advocate for tenants rights and for affordable housing, or was she going to deliver results ? Christine was using her constant media appearances to construct a powerful media-supported soapbox from which she could influence public opinion. Helping to shape public opinion was one way to create grassroots support to call for governmental action. Christine had effectively, if distastefully, used the media before to her advantage. She once used threats to cancel the 1998 Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village to influence voters perceptions about her being a crusading advocate for LGBT equality. Being in the public spotlight like that gave Christine not only legitimacy, but it gave her the ability to sway voters. Was she going to use her position of influence to make advances on housing issues ? And how would she use her powers as a municipal legislator to make progress for New York City tenants ? In the time leading up to the 2001 election, Christine had aligned herself with Gifford Miller, who would go on to become the new Speaker of the City Council. In exchange for her early support of Speaker Miller, Christine was rewarded by being
230 http://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/17/nyregion/ymca-chelsea-sheds-its-tenants-34-men-used-single-
rooms-know-new-homes-will-be.html
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given the position of chair of the City Council Health Committee. Thats how the political system worked. This was a positive affirmation of that system of paybacks that Christines father had instilled in her. You helped somebody, which compeled that somebody to help you. Christines political motivations were once given by a sensibility that social, legal, or economic wrongs needed to be corrected. But after being in office for about three years, her motivations were already becoming more like those of an entrenched incumbent. Heres one example of how Christine began to care more about her relationship with her political donors over the concerns of tenants in affordable housing. In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, many downtown residents faced a housing disaster, because of the toxic debris caused by the collapse of three towers at 1, 2, and 7 World Trade Center. Security and health concerns led Downtown residents to face evacuation, and these residents were locked out of their apartments for some time. Returning to normal would prove to be difficult, since businesses would close as a result of residual effects from the attacks. In Downtown Manhattan, the social fabric had been seriously disrupted. A couple of years after the attacks, tenants at Independence Plaza North, a massive affordable high-rise building in Tribeca, faced a devastating prospect. Their landlord was proposing to take the whole complex out of an affordable housing program called Mitchell-Lama. Mitchell-Lama was a housing program developed after the severe housing shortage experienced in New York following the end of World War II.231 The program provided incentives for real estate developers to construct affordable
231 http://open.nysenate.gov/legislation/bill/A3020-2013
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housing, and in exchange developers received what were essentially subsidies, mainly in the form of low-cost loans. The program proved to be moderately successful, and about 165,000 units were constructed across 400 projects. There were conditions that governed when the owner of a Mitchell-Lama building could exit the program. Some of the buildings were rental apartments, and others were built as co-ops for sale. If the building was a rental apartment building, then the caps on rents that would make the apartments affordable would only last about 20 years, give or take, from when the building first entered the program. .232 When the new owner of Independence Plaza North seemed intent on taking the large complex of buildings in TriBeCa out of the program, many tenants sought help from New York City councilmembers. Tenants were seeking added protections that would let them stay in their affordable to moderately affordable apartments. City Council Speaker Miller proposed legislation to help answer the concerns of Mitchell-Lama residents. His proposal would add new regulations to owners of Mitchell-Lama buildings, making it more difficult for owners to make a windfall by throwing out their old tenants in favor of new tenants willing to pay free market rents.233 Speaker Miller, Christine, residents of Independent Plaza North, and others stood on the steps of City Hall at a press event to build public support for Speaker Millers proposed bill. This kind of a press event had already become par for the course to Christine, as she had mastered the art of the media sound bite. But according to recollections of that press event posted on the Internet by Neil Fabricant, a former tenant organizer at Independence Plaza North, Christine refused
232 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/02/realestate/leaving-mitchell-lama-many-paths-all-bumpy.html 233 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/02/realestate/leaving-mitchell-lama-many-paths-all-bumpy.html
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to speak in front of the cameras in support of the Mitchell-Lama protection bill. When the microphone was passed to Christine, she passed on the microphone without making any remarks to the press. Christines refusal to speak in support of the bill confounded Mr. Fabricant, especially since Christine was a co-sponsor of Speaker Millers bill. Later I learned that she was not the enthusiastic supporter that she had made herself out to be. Mr. Fabricant would learn the hard way that, by this time, Christine already had close ties to the real estate industry.234 The bill proposed by Speaker Miller had been negotiated by tenants rights activists. It would have required building owners to give residents notice of 18 months before they could leave the program instead of 12 months, which had been the requirement at the time, and building owners would have to pay a fee of $1,000.00 per unit that would be converted to free market rent. On top of that, the proposed bill would make it a requirement to have a community impact study.235 When taken as a whole, these added protections were viewed as being fair by concerned Mitchell-Lama tenants. Tenants faced the prospect of huge rent increases or evections if building owners left the program. At one Mitchell-Lama complex on the East Side of Manhattan, rents on a three bedroom Mitchell-Lama apartment would be raised from $1,500.00 to about $4,000.00 once that complex left the program.236 At one Brooklyn Heights building, all of the Mitchell-Lama residents
234 http://bloombergwatch.com/index.php/06/independence-plaza-if-you-cant-tell-the-truth-at-least-dont-lie/ 235 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/02/realestate/leaving-mitchell-lama-many-paths-all-bumpy.html 236 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/01/nyregion/neighborhood-report-kips-bay-tenants-battle-for-low-
rents-and-a-diverse-building.html
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received eviction notices.237 There was a lot at stake for people of low-income or of the working class. In postings on a political Web site, Mr. Fabricant described the pressure that real estate developers exerted over councilmembers. Even though Speaker Miller was sponsoring the proposed bill, and tenant activists had lined up a veto-proof majority support within the City Council, the real estate industry still carried weight. At the City Hall press event, Mr. Fabricant recounted that Speaker Miller had admonished him for having gone too far in his critical remarks about owners of Mitchell-Lama buildings. We dont want to demonize the landlords, Mr. Fabricant recalled Speaker Miller as having said.238 According to Mr. Fabricants retelling of that days events, Mr. Fabricant came to believe that the only reason that Speaker Miller had sponsored the draft bill to help Mitchell-Lama residents was that the proposed changes would by and large not impact members of the powerful Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY).239 REBNY is a powerful lobbying group for wealthy developers and others in the real estate trade.240 In spite of a history of corruption in New York City real estate,241 REBNY fought efforts at regulation.242 In later years, the trade group took further steps to exert even more influence over politicians.243 But once REBNY saw that
237 http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/tenants-shown-door-mitchell-lama-buyer-pulls-1st-total-
eviction-article-1.527747 238 http://bloombergwatch.com/index.php/07/the-real-christine-quinn-stands-upand-quickly-sits-down/ 239 http://bloombergwatch.com/index.php/07/the-real-christine-quinn-stands-upand-quickly-sits-down/ 240 http://therealdeal.com/issues_articles/getting-checkbooks-out-for-rebny-as-annual-dues-look/ 241 http://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/12/nyregion/8-charged-with-getting-kickbacks-at-31-buildings.html 242 http://cooperator.com/articles/1095/1/The-Debate-Goes-On/Page1.html 243 http://observer.com/2010/04/rebny-taps-former-bloomberg-official-to-lead-political-push/
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Mitchell-Lama activists like Mr. Fabricant were becoming a threat, the trade group publicly denounced Speaker Millers draft bill.244 The following year, the owner of Independence Plaza North was allowed to leave the Mitchell-Lama program, but tenants received some nominal protections from escalating rent increases. The draft bill proposed by Speaker Miller, once it became opposed by REBNY, was transformed from a bill with restrictions on Mitchell-Lama buildings owners to one that would provide low-cost refinancing of existing mortgages and new, low-interest loans to building owners.245 In the minds of the City Councilmembers, this package of loans would somehow stop evictions and steep rent increases, but this bill would only work if Mitchell-Lama landlords accepted the new low-cost loans. In the new bill, there were no more demands or requirements made of the Mitchell-Lama landlords. Instead, the bill became a low- cost loan giveaway. Huge real estate holdings are managed like any other investment company : its a business thats all about leveraging the lowest cost of capital for the highest return on equity. The low-cost loan giveaway would be a boon to landlord profits. Yet, the spin that city officials put on the loan program was that the proceeds of the loans would go for building repairs. But these Mitchell-Lama buildings were neither flophouses nor rattraps. These were rather well maintained buildings. But City Councilmembers had to show something for the low-cost loan giveaway, and so they made it appear that the loan package would be used to finance building repairs, for which the landlords should have already budgeted
244 http://www.downtownexpress.com/DE_14/councilsays.html 245 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/29/nyregion/city-announces-financing-deal-for-mitchell-lama-
landlords.html
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through existing rent proceeds. The new bill fit the classic description of smoke and mirrors : it was only an illusion that the new bill served to provide of more tenant protections. In the new bill, there was no specification for oversight to make sure that building repairs was exactly how the loan money would actually be used. And this was precisely how REBNY got its way in New York City politics. The new package of 15 year loans was estimated to potentially cost New York City taxpayers over $75 million. This money would not pay for new construction of affordable housing, and there was no way to guarantee compliance with the making of repairs. In all likelihood, these low-cost loans would just help Mitchell-Lama landlords to maximize their return on equity and nothing else. Meanwhile, Christine had to make sure that there was an appropriate political cover to the low-cost loan giveaway. Michael McKee, the controversial tenant activist alongside whom Christine once worked, praised the loan package to landlords. We think its a good program, and we support it, he told The New York Times.246 As it turned out, the deal for Independent Plaza North was beset by further controversy. Tenants would not be able to qualify their apartments for rent stabilization. 247 Its not known how the story for Independence Plaza North might have played out had Christine made different choices. She deliberately passed the buck on the crisis faced by its tenants. She had at her disposal a platform in the City Hall press that gave her a visibility that enhanced her authority with voters, but she
246 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/29/nyregion/city-announces-financing-deal-for-mitchell-lama-
landlords.html 247 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/nyregion/05independence.html
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chose not use that influence to build public support for reforms to extend Mitchell- Lama protections. As a councilmember, Christine supported a watered-down bill that, instead of putting binding restrictions on Mitchell-Lama landlords, gave them a package of more low-cost loans to building owners, who had already enjoyed similar benefits for over 20 years. The low-cost loan giveaway paled in comparison with past attempts at instituting progressive reforms in the New York real estate market. Past progressive reforms included outright bans on poorly constructed apartment buildings, and other reforms included the roll-out of programs that would finance the construction of numerous affordable housing buildings. The extension of more low-cost loans by the New York City Council achieved no transformative gains for Mitchell-Lama tenants, and REBNY saw how they could manipulate a crisis over affordable housing into a legislative package of more financial incentives that the wealthy landlords could use to their advantage. About the time that the fight for tougher protections for Mitchell-Lama residents was playing out, Christine fought against the only major zone-busting development deal that she would ever publicly mount in her entire political career. This was before she had made a pact with Mayor Bloomberg to enable his agenda of gentrification that would price out low-income and middle class workers into the margins of New York City. Mayor Bloomberg was trying to rezone a large part of the West Side of Midtown Manhattan for high rise construction in order to supposedly create tax revenues to fund the construction of a new sports stadium. For the first few years of Mayor Bloombergs administration, Christine was very visible in her
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opposition to this plan. This would be the last time that Christine would ever publicly oppose Mayor Bloomberg. In the beginning stages of Mayor Bloombergs project, it wasnt exactly clear whether Christine was completely committed to opposing both aspects of the plan. The part of the project that involved the rezoning of vast amounts of land was referred to Hudson Yards, while the building of the sports stadium was referred to as the West Side Stadium. At one early media event on the steps of City Hall in opposition to Mayor Bloombergs plans, Christine was absent, creating the impression that she was waffling on her opposition to the Hudson Yards aspect of the project. When Christine learned that one activist, who wished to remain anonymous, was challenging her commitment to the opposition movement, Christine opened up her bitch tap, and she let the activist have it.248 Christine had been absent from a press conference that had been called to oppose the massive construction plan, and she felt that she had to defend herself, even though she never explained why she did not participate at the press conference. To others, Christines absence looked remarkably similar to the episode when Christine passed the microphone without speaking one word at the Mitchell-Lama press conference -- an indication that Christine didnt want to upset developers and landlords. But to Christine, it was important to keep maintaining her myth as a tenants right activist and to keep appearing as if she opposed major zone-busting real estate deals. Any indication to the contrary would be met with harsh retribution from Christine, and thats exactly how she reacted to the one activist over the Hudson Yards project.
248 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpvoM2eQED8
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Christine left a couple of indignant and dramatic voice mail messages for the Hudson Yards activist. In those voice mail messages, which the activist recorded and posted to YouTube years later, Christine was deliberately belittling the activist, and the tone of her messages was intimidating and menacing.249 I couldnt be at the press conference. Are you saying that Tom [Duane] and Dick [Gottfried] are waffling, because they only sent staff, or do you merely single out the female councilmember to attack in some kind of sick, sexist routine ? I would like a list of every single person you told this blatant lie to. I would like an e-mail to my office immediately. We will call each one.250 These voicemail messages would finally offer a public insight into Christines self-described bitch tap, what others would describe as the dark side of her personality. The myth about her advocacy was so important to Christine that she was not above bullying others to keep this public myth alive. Predictably, real estate interests supported the Hudson Yards project, and the giant, New York-based developer Tishman Speyer was one of the early leaders identified to possibly manage the development project.251 But opinion polls showed that voters were against the West Side Stadium.252 Between the opposing choices of enabling developers or pacifying voters, Christine escalated her opposition to the stadium plan, in order to stay on voters good side. Christine navigated her way through the two controversial projects by asserting that she didnt believe that the Hudson Yards project would generate enough new tax revenue to finance the West Side Stadium. She pointed to the conflict of interest inherent in the application
249 http://youtu.be/-bSMJK4MP-I 250 http://youtu.be/EpvoM2eQED8 251 http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/03/28/opinion/28fri4.html 252 http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/jets-yes-pay-hah-article-1.570765
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process as a tactic to question the economic assumptions of the ambitious project. I am troubled by the fact that the environmental impact statement and most of the economic discussion about the stadium is based on an Ernst & Young statement, and nothing against Ernst & Young, but they were hired to do that study by the New York Jets, Christine said at a public town hall about the proposal.253 In the fight against the West Side Stadium and the Hudson Yards project, Christine used her platform in the media as the elected official representing the Hudson Yards neighborhood to authoritatively oppose the stadium deal, and she based her opposition on sound reasoning. Unlike with the crisis at Independence Plaza North and other Mitchell-Lama buildings, this time Christine was unafraid to be bold in her use of her platform with the media. But this inconsistency was a troubling development, and, more than anything else, it would foreshadow the crossing of a threshold. Many news articles documented Christines opposition to the West Side Stadium.254 255 256 The oppositional work she did helped to shore up her myth, which had been weakened by her inaction on behalf of the Mitchell-Lama tenants. But one interesting lesson Christine learned from Speaker Miller was this : he had remained silent about his final decision about the West Side Stadium plan until almost the very end, once the stadium plan looked like it would not be approved. As late as the summer of 2004, Speaker Miller had yet to announce whether he
253 http://old.gothamgazette.com/civic_conv/7_19_04_opening.shtml 254 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/08/nyregion/08javits.html 255 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/26/nyregion/facing-long-road-west-side-makeover-gets-a-big-
sendoff.html 256 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A03E5D6133FF93BA25752C1A9629C8B63
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supported or opposed the stadium plan.257 Speaker Miller finally announced his opposition to the stadium plan258 three weeks before the state legislature refused to consider the plan, thereby dealing a serious setback to the stadium.259 For such a contentious and controversial plan, which voters overwhelmingly opposed, Speaker Miller refused to make a public declaration of his own position on the stadium plan until it was almost certain to fail. Speaker Millers delay tactic was a lesson that Christine would adopt and put into practice in her later career. Speaker Miller didnt want to take an early position on a real estate issue that would upset developers, but Christine was still too connected at that time with radical activists in her City Council district to be allowed the kind of room to adopt that level of manipulative, non-committal political stance. Christine had to make a commitment to placate the activists in her community, but she saw how Speaker Miller was able to use the delay tactic without having paid too much of a political price. Years later, Christine would take non-committal positions on controversial issues as a tactic she would use to great political advantage. Another lesson, which Christine got out of her experience in opposing the West Side Stadium, was that final approval for the project was needed from state officials in Albany. The whole time that she was opposing the stadium, it turned out that she wasnt really on the hook for casting a deciding vote that would kill the project. Sure, she had caused an upset for developers, but Christine wasnt the ultimate decider. Christine was just using her platform in the media to ride the wave
257 http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/speaker-mum-jets-plan-article-1.656532 258 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A03E5D6133FF93BA25752C1A9629C8B63 259 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/08/nyregion/08javits.html
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of voter anger against the stadium plan for her own political benefit. She was only grandstanding, and she learned that when the final authority for an outcome of a controversial issue was up in Albany, it gave her license to use the situation to her advantage. Ultimately, in the summer of 2005, the West Side Stadium was formally defeated when New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver refused to support the plan. There was a third lesson from this process for Christine. The reason that Speaker Silver opposed the stadium project was because the construction would compete with the recovery of Ground Zero, which was in his Assembly district. 260 Speaker Silvers personal political motivations were augmented by the motivations of a powerful billionaire New York family, the Dolans, who owned Madison Square Garden. The Dolans came to view the West Side Stadium as competition to their own sports venue, and the Dolans organized to defeat the proposal.261 Christine saw that a large real estate development deal in Manhattan could be subject to many outside pressures, and even if she had initially supported the stadium plan, she would have angered voters and the powerful Dolan family. By opposing the stadium, she had appeased voters and fluffed her myth, and she had done right by the Dolans. When the time came for the final decision to be rendered on the plan, Christine was happy to see Speaker Silver take the heat. Christine came out looking pretty good with everybody, with the possible exceptions of Mayor Bloomberg and the developer Tishman Speyer. The third lesson came down to this : Christine saw that there was a way to spin a win from a divisive situation.

260 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/06/nyregion/06cnd-stadium.html 261 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/06/nyregion/06cnd-stadium.html
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Meanwhile, in late 2004, Christine was still opposing the Hudson Yards part of the project, because the original plan only called for approximately 2,600 affordable housing units out a total of nearly 14,000 apartments. Although this plan has taken steps forward on affordable housing, it doesn't go far enough, Christine told The New York Daily News at the time. 262 By the end of 2009, though, she had changed her mind, and soon enough we will see why Christine moved so swiftly to support this development project. The final part of the Hudson Yards plan that Christine supported through City Council passage, was led by different developers : a joint venture of Related Companies and Goldman Sachs. It required far fewer affordable housing units. The final plan called for a set aside of only 431 apartments to be below market rents.263 To the new developers, what mattered most was that the requirement for affordable housing was lowered. If 2,600 new, developer- provided affordable housing units were considered too few for Christine in 2004, she didnt explain why 431 new units suddenly become acceptable in 2009. The new deal called for the developer to preserve an additional 401 of existing affordable apartments. And part of the burden of creating new affordable housing was shifted to taxpayers. Christine agreed on behalf of New York City to build 320 affordable apartments, and the city would try to acquire an additional 150 housing units in the form of single-room occupancy hotel rooms. In Christines new emerging worldview of tenants rights advocacy, real estate developers had to be let off the hook.264 Allowing developers a way to manipulate development plans
262 http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/mike-takes-housing-hit-article-1.595300 263 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/nyregion/22hudson.html 264 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/nyregion/22hudson.html
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to provide fewer affordable housing units was a form of a giveaway to developers, and this came on top of giving Hudson Yards developers tax breaks, in addition to the fact that the Metropolitan Subway Authority was going to enhance the value of the properties in the development by extending the 7 train line from Times Square to the Far West Side and then down to 34th Street. Eventually, revenues from the Hudson Yards project would fall short of expectations,265 but the net value of wealth that would be created and transferred to the final developers of the project by the rezoning of land use, the lower affordable housing requirements, and the tax incentives would total billions. Developers would make out like bandits, and Christine was there to enable this. Quinns claim to be a supporter, let alone a tenant champion, is as fraudulent as virtually everything known about her career, Mr. Fabricant said in an exclusive interview for this book. She's done what most faux tenant supporters do: 1) pass meaningless bills and proclaim them as great achievements, 2) call on other branches of government to help tenants when the person doing the calling has the power to do far more, or 3) do nothing. Mr. Fabricants analysis of Christines failures can be seen from the perspective of her authority and influence. She had the power to extract concessions in the final Hudson Yards zoning agreement, but Christine chose to instead water down the affordable housing units being offered by the new developers. And she had the power to take her concerns to the media about the lower affordable housing requirement, to mobilize public opinion against the change, but Christine chose to instead approve the watered-down requirements
265 http://www.ibo.nyc.ny.us/iboreports/hudsonyards2013.pdf
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without making any public waves. Like Mr. Fabricant had described in his recollections of the fight for added Mitchell-Lama protections, Christine had already joined the real estate industrys side. In 2006, Christine was elected to become the speaker of the City Council. The controversy surrounding her election will be examined in Chapter 8. But in the same year, over 10,000 apartments in the massive complex of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village were sold to real estate speculators in a $5.4 billion deal.266 Tenant activists feared that the sale was contingent on the new buyers forcing out rent stabilized tenants in order to raise the rents to free market levels. The new buyers were led by Tishman Speyer, the giant developer which eventually lost out on the Hudson Yards project, and a real estate unit of the large private equity behemoth BlackRock. The principal Tishman Speyer executive, who put the massive deal together, was a former co-head of the Partnership For New York City, a Chamber of Commerce-like trade group of top New York corporate executives. The Partnership For New York City liked to act behind the scenes to further the political agenda of its mega corporation members. Its General Counsel was Brad Hoylman, a close associate of Christine. MetLife, the large insurance company, was looking to unload Stuy-Town and Peter Cooper in an effort to unlock massive profits from its real estate holdings at the height of the speculative real estate bubble. MetLife had constructed the large complexes of affordable housing using government subsidies, and now it wanted to cash out. Back then, Christine gave lip service to shame MetLife in one article in The
266 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/18/nyregion/18stuyvesant.html
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New York Times, but she took no further action. At one time, they were the model of a New York corporate citizen, Christine told The New York Times. The commitment they once had to New York City is gone.267 Christine complained that she couldnt get a meeting with MetLife, but it is not known if she tried getting a meeting with Mr. Hoylman, who had access to Tishman Speyer executives. If Christine really wanted a meeting, there would have been a way to publicly shame MetLife or Mr. Hoylman into it. By about this time, the myth that Christine was still an advocate for tenants rights was about as credible as still believing in the tooth fairy. One need only look back to see how uncommitted Christine was in maintaining intact the affordable housing requirement for the Hudson Yards developers. Eventually, the Stuy-Town and Peter Cooper deal went bankrupt,268 but not before thousands of apartments were wrongly removed from rent regulation,269 and some tenants spent years fighting threats of massive rent increases.270 Two years after Stuy-Town and Peter Cooper were sold to real estate speculators, The New York Times published a damning report showing that the real estate industry was donating large amounts of campaign money to political candidates before new restrictions on the industry were to take effect. According to The New York Times report, the level of donations being made by real estate interests were between three to four times the levels in typical election cycles. These donations were made with the obvious intention to influence the expected mayoral candidates in the 2009 election, when it was still thought that Mayor
267 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/31/business/yourmoney/31speyer.html 268 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/nyregion/26stuy.html 269 http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/stuyway-robbier-cry-tenants-article-1.1344287 270 http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20130618/REAL_ESTATE/130619861
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Bloomberg would be prevented from running again because of term limits. Large and wealthy developers and landlords were interested in compromising Democratic mayoral candidates to weaken their commitment to reforming the land use approval process and to show them the benefits of enabling weaker affordable housing requirements. City Hall exerts influence over legislation and regulations that determine zone-busting application approvals, tax breaks,271 and, as was seen by some Mitchell-Lama landlords, City Hall could be tricked into easily providing deals that might include low-cost loan packages to real estate investors. The examination of real estate donation records showed that, at the time, Christine was collecting the most donations from real estate interests. 272 It was now finally possible to understand why Christine could approve the Hudson Yards project with requirements for fewer affordable housing units. Christines official acts in office would by this point begin to appear to have been influenced by the large amounts of campaign contributions she was receiving from real estate developers. Indeed, in The New York Times campaign report, the two largest real estate contributors to the candidates expected to run for mayor in 2009, of which Christine was one, were the owners of Rudin Management Company, who would become entangled in a protracted real estate battle over the fate of St. Vincents Hospital, and people tied to the Related Companies, one of the final two developers selected to work on the Hudson Yards project.273

271 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/01/nyregion/01fundraising.html 272 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/01/nyregion/01fundraising.html 273 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/01/nyregion/01fundraising.html
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Now, there could be no more truth to Christines myth of her still being an advocate for tenants rights and affordable housing. More and more, Christine was becoming the go-to person for the real estate industry, and it was clear that she knew who was buttering her bread. The City Council knew not to stand in the way of real estate development, The New York Times reported. The former deputy mayor under Mayor Bloomberg was reported at the time to have bragged about Mayor Bloombergs record of 78-0 in pushing through zoning changes through the City Council. 274 Clearly, the real estate industry got what it wanted. As one began to clearly see the arc of Christines work in City Council as it related to real estate development issues, it was easy to draw the conclusion that she was no longer in public office to advocate for tenants. She was using her platform and her official powers to enable the real estate industry to carry out its agenda, just as Mr. Fabricant had said. During the course of Mayor Bloobmergs mayoralty, the billionaire mayor would by many accounts focus on the development of luxury housing for a super- wealthy segment of the citys population, a strategy and vision that left no place for affordable housing. Between 2002 and 2008, New York City lost by one calculation more than 194,000 rental housing units affordable to low- income households, a 16.4 percent decrease.275 The cumulative effect of the loss of affordable housing would take its toll on middle and lower-income residents. Like in her photo op at the Independence Plaza North media event, all Christine would be willing to do is to lend nominal, yet impotent support for affordable housing. She opposed the West
274 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/01/nyregion/01fundraising.html 275 http://coalhome.3cdn.net/4c773e13c643a610dd_lqm6bh56n.pdf
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Side Stadium, but then she approved the Hudson Yards project with substantially fewer affordable housing units. She wouldnt fight harder, and it would show in the results that Christine would enable. In no year during the Bloomberg-Quinn administration would the city ever show a growth in the number of affordable housing units. And when it came to those with the least, those tenants living in buildings owned by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), they would get even less attention paid to their needs. The tenants rights activist, which Christine used to be, did not show up to advocate for any tenants. Christine would come to be almost universally perceived as being Mayor Bloombergs chief enabler that, by the final years of his mayoralty, many would come to brand their time together in public office as the Bloomberg-Quinn administration. Their lockstep actions on real estate would appear to favor wealthy landlords, real estate developers, and real estate interests over any real expansion of affordable housing. Increasing affordable housing never got put on the governments agenda, except for opportunities that REBNY exploited to find ways to reward the real estate industry. After a spectacular series of tabloid stories about the shoddy conditions at buildings owned by NYCHA, The New York Daily News reported that NYCHA was sitting on almost $1 billion of unspent funds.276 Housing advocates decried the revelation of the massive unspent resources, because these resources could have been used to improve or expand affordable housing. Two more aspects remain before Christine could be evaluated on her progressive record on affordable housing. Firstly, in 2013, officials at NYCHA
276 http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nycha-board-sitting-1b-fed-cash-article-1.1126326
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concocted a scheme to lease 14 plots of irreplaceable open space between housing projects to private real estate developers with rights to construct new apartment buildings. In these new buildings, 80% of the new rental units were planned to be rented at full, free market rates, and only 20% would be made available as affordable housing. This scheme would raise only between $30 million to $50 million in annual revenues from the land leases.277 NYCHA was emphasizing the need to raise more revenue to pay for improvements to its existing buildings at a time when it was exposed to be hoarding $1 billion in unspent reserves. The open spaces that NYCHA residents would lose under this plan would be playgrounds and parking lots.278 For people with the least, taking away what little open spaces NYCHA tenants had would make public housing projects more dreary and oppressive. It was impossible to see how Christine, who once called herself a progressive, could support deteriorating living conditions. Real estate developers planned to make money from this NYCHA scheme by paying the least amount in lease payments to NYCHA in exchange for collecting the most amount of free market rents from the tenants in the newly planned upscale buildings. This was another giveaway to real estate developers on two levels : first, the developers would get to pay low land lease rates, and second they would be getting use of public land that belonged to the taxpayers of New York City. It wasnt lost on tenant activists that NYCHAs plan gave short shrift to those with the least, who have depended on NYCHA for housing. How could municipal leaders, like
277 http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycha/html/preserving/leasing-land-proposal.shtml 278 http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/mayoral-hopefuls-slam-nycha-luxury-high-rise-plan-article-
1.1257547
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Mayor Bloomberg and Christine, be so tone deaf to the outrageous idea of building upscale apartment buildings on the irreplaceable open spaces between NYCHAs public housing projects ? If nothing else, if there was room to build more residential towers on NYCHA property, shouldnt the tenants in the new housing be made up of 100% of NYCHA residents ? Because the extreme prices for housing in New York City had created conditions that dislocated so many people with low incomes, NYCHA had become the citys largest landlord with approximately 600,000 residents. All of NYCHAs problems were being laid bare in the tabloid newspapers of New York. A scandal about a severe backlog of repairs at NYCHA buildings triggered a series of frontpage headlines,279 and all Christine could muster as a response was a proposal to replace the computer system used to track NYCHA tenants.280 Christine was showing herself to be constitutionally incapable of directly addressing any major housing issue. Lastly, to add insult to injury, the Bloomberg administration began an effort to promote the idea that studio apartments for single occupants should be no more than 300 square foot in size. Mayor Bloomberg and Amanda Burden, his socialite city planner, gave a walking tour of a mock layout of the newly cramped space that they were recommending New Yorkers to embrace. This was another administration-driven plan to help real estate developers shrink the size of apartments, so that they could increase the number of apartments in new construction with the aim to maximize free market rents. By decreasing the size of
279 http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/10-million-report-nycha-shows-backlog-338-000-repair-orders-
10-000-won-addressed-2014-article-1.1138249 280 http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/city-council-eyes-nycha-reforms-article-1.1247382
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apartments, landlords would be able to increase the number of units in a new building, all other things being equal. It was a backdoor giveaway to the real estate industry. Instantly, the press pointed out the historic ramifications of the Bloomberg plan to cut the size of future apartments. City rules mandating bigger apartments were put in place to combat cramped tenement conditions, but Bloomberg said the regulations need to roll with the times, reported The New York Daily News. These mandates stemmed from reforms enacted during the Progressive Era at the turn of the last century, when New York State passed the Tenement House Act of 1901 after tenement housing conditions reached inhumane proportions. What Mayor Bloomberg was essentially calling for was a repeal of this landmark tenants rights law. And Christine knew that it was in her own best interest to remain silent about Mayor Bloombergs plan to gut the Tenement House Act, but her strategy wouldnt be a good strategy for tenants. Over and over again, Christines strategy would be to abdicate any leadership role in advocating for progressive reforms. By this time, she alone controlled the legislative agenda in the City Council. Her deliberate decision to relinquish any role in calling for reforms in how the city financed affordable housing, public housing, or regulating the size of new housing units would have a lasting impact. Christine had become compromised by her acceptance of so much campaign contributions from special interests, especially from real estate developers. If regulatory capture theory is true, and it was possible for special interests to take control of a regulating body, then, by the very nature of developers and landlords having flooded political candidates with large campaign contributions, the real estate industry had found a
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way to neutralize the legislative agenda of the City Council. Astute political observers would need to look at Christines political donors to recognize that it was she whom developers and landlords were chiefly targeting for legislative capture. By January 2013, executives from developers and landlords had donated over $800,000.00 to Christines political campaign for the 2013 election cycle, representing by one estimate to be 14% of the $6 million that Christine had raised as of that point for her next political campaign.281 By this time, Christine estimated that New York City had lost a total of 300,000 affordable housing units, and she blamed politicians up in Albany,282 even though as the City Council speaker, she was in a position to make a difference. But Christine failed to deliver greater protections for Mitchell-Lama residents, and she herself accepted lower affordable housing requirements at the Hudson Yards project. Near the end of Mike Bloombergs mayoralty, it was reported that the billionaire mayor had managed to rezone 37% of the land in New York City. 283 Under Christines leadership, the City Council failed to seize on this opportunity to make affordable housing a priority. And all of the small denomination contributions she had collected from activists, like those who worked for Housing Works, would prove to have been made in vain. None of those small donations ever made a difference to keep Christine true to her advocacy roots. Yet, Christine would continue to propagate her myth as a tenants rights activists in spite of her record of failure.

281 http://therealdeal.com/blog/2013/02/20/quinn-beats-mayoral-rivals-in-real-estate-donations/ 282 http://www.city-journal.org/2013/eon0128ng.html 283 http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2013/08/18/reshaping-new-york/
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And we can now finally see a more complete picture of what was happening in terms of housing and real estate during the 15 years that Christine would be in City Council, 12 years of which she served under Mayor Bloomberg. Christine had power that came from her position of influence in the media, and she could have used that influence to shape public opinion to build support for increasing the amount of available affordable housing. But Christine took inept actions, or she failed to act, and these failures caused setbacks for New Yorkers searching for or living in affordable housing. Christine also had power that came from her authority from within the City Council. As we saw, she refused to enthusiastically support the first version of proposed legislation that would have provided stiffer protections to Mitchell-Lama residents, and then later we saw how she watered down the affordable housing requirements in the massive Hudson Yards project. At each step of the way, Christine acted as an agent for the best interest of real estate developers. In the beginning of her career in public office, Christine was merely one of over 50 municipal legislators. After 2006, she alone would completely control the legislative agenda in the City Council. During this time, she would no longer really need to lean on the media to exert an influence on public opinion. If she so wanted, Christine could have unilaterally put important social, legal, and economic issues on the governments agenda. She had that much power, but she chose not to advocate for tenants, because she did not want to compromise the large stream of campaign contributions from wealthy developers and landlords. A progressive leader would have substantially limited the power of real estate interests in deciding the outcome of zone-busting development deals, and
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Christine has shown that she was unable to do this. She should have defended the landmark Tenement House Act from being threatened by Mayor Bloomberg, but Christine did nothing. Her environmental record in the area of real estate lacked regard for community concerns. When New York City planned to install two garbage facilities, one in Tribeca284 and the other in the Upper East Side,285 Christine angered both neighborhoods,286 287 because she refused to advocate on behalf of the residents. The installation in Tribeca was a large facility for garbage trucks used across three districts, and the installation in the Upper East Side was a waste transfer station. The emerging theme from community opposition to Christines approvals of these controversial projects was that she had no regard for voter input. Christine was not listening to the community, Maria Passannante Derr told The Villager.288 When Spectra Energy wanted to build a large pipeline to transport fracked gas beneath New York City, Christine refused requests to hold City Council hearings into the dangerous levels of radon in the fracked gas.289 She alone had at her discretion the power to call for hearings, but she chose not to. Any developer or oil and gas corporation wanting to exploit New York City real estate for private gain was going to get a free pass under Christines watch. Any influence, power, or progressive ethic she once had wasnt going to stop the use of real property for private gain, no matter whether the real estate was part of the Mitchell-Lama
284 http://thevillager.com/villager_351/judgedumps.html 285 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/timothy-greenfieldsanders/garbage-dump-protest_b_182646.html 286 http://thevillager.com/villager_308/starsaddglitz.html 287 http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/upper_east_siders_boo_christine_yHSejiOqtZ2zxDLuH4dDyH 288 http://thevillager.com/villager_308/starsaddglitz.html 289 http://occupythepipeline.blogspot.com/2012/10/christine-quinn-rejects-radon-gas.html
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program, the playgrounds at public housing projects, or, literally, beneath us. Many sources concluded that Christine was subjugating herself to Mayor Bloombergs pro- development, pro-gentrification agenda. And her official acts were a sign that she was aligning herself with the mayors extremist economic worldview.
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Chapter 7
In addition to having been a tenants rights activist in her youth, Christine was also once the executive director of AVP, a nonprofit organization that tackled the problem of violence against LGBTs in New York City. One category of violence that AVP dealt with was police procedures : police brutality against LGBT New Yorkers, discrimination in how police investigated hate crimes, and sexual orientation profiling in how the police targeted LGBT New Yorkers for extra scrutiny and harassment. Participants in the 1998 Matthew Sheppard memorial march through Midtown Manhattan were subjected to unprovoked confrontation, blockades, and mass arrests. As Christine had witnessed then, the police had demonstrated blatant disregard for allowing citizens to peacefully participate in a political march. Christine was aware that police were reckless in handling the critical medical needs of citizens that police had falsely arrested and detained under inhumane conditions. She had even used her platform in the media at that time to exert influence over public opinion to show that police had wrongly forced detainees to miss their AIDS medications, a situation that had serious health implications.290 Yet, no reforms resulted from her efforts then. Several lawsuits were filed against the NYPD over its use of excessive force during the Matthew Shepard memorial march.291 292 293 Many of the people, who
290 http://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/19/nyregion/lawsuit-says-the-police-barred-access-to-vital-drugs.html 291 http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/13/nyregion/eight-arrested-at-rally-file-suit-saying-city-violated-their-
rights.html 292 http://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/19/nyregion/lawsuit-says-the-police-barred-access-to-vital-drugs.html 293 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MatthewShepardUpdate/message/2889
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sued, received settlements from New York City.294 295 But a lawsuit could achieve only so much in terms of justice. The people, who were injured by the police departments deliberate use of horses to assault and batter the march participants, were going to receive personal justice in the form of lawsuit settlements, to the extent the settlements were seen as fair. However, the cultural and institutional problems at the NYPD that gave rise to the tactics of using excessive force -- such as the use of horse-mounted police, barricades, and false arrests -- were not being addressed. The last opportunity at bringing about institutional reform of the police department was when a task force empaneled by Mayor Giuliani delivered in 1998 a majority report of recommendations following the brutal attack and torture of Abner Louima by NYPD officers in a Brooklyn station house. Unfortunately, the final recommendations of that task force were watered down by members, like Christine, before Mayor Giuliani completely rejected the task force all together.296 Christine was aware of other ways that the police were known to mistreat the LGBT community. Gay bars were historically always subjected to raids by police, for example. Combined with these raids, the constant harassment and discrimination at the hands of the police were what led to the 1969 Stonewall riots. Within the NYPDs culture of bias, the many instances of the use of excessive force and unequal treatment showed that there was a pattern that needed to be addressed. However, Christine took no action. In spite of her influence and authority, she would lead no effort to launch a reform of the police department.
294 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/11/nyregion/3-trampled-by-police-horses-reach-settlement-with-
city.html 295 http://benjaminheimshepard.blogspot.com/2011/10/from-matthew-shepard-political-funeral.html 296 http://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/27/nyregion/giuliani-dismisses-police-proposals-by-his-task-force.html
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Police mistreatment of the LGBT community didnt end with its response to LGBT political demonstrations or the patronage of bars. In 1990, when Matt Foreman was still the executive director of AVP, a gay youngman named Julio Rivera was murdered in Jackson Heights, Queens, in what was plainly a hate crime. Activists, community residents, and representatives from AVP had to march through Mr. Riveras neighborhood and in front of Gracie Mansion to stir up the necessary political pressure on Mayor David Dinkins and the police department to investigate the murder as a hate crime.297 Five months after the murder, the NYPD finally classified Mr. Riveras death as a hate crime.298 It took activists working with a community group headed by an executive director committed to his cause to exert sufficient pressure from the outside for the NYPD to respond to the communitys concerns. After Christine became a political insider, she was supposed to facilitate appropriate government responses to pressing community needs. Given that she was a self-proclaimed progressive, she was portraying herself as having the sensibilities of an advocate for reforms with an appreciation of the need for increased grassroots participation. What would be the consequences of her having done nothing to reform the NYPD ? When security experts would talk about threats to public safety in the post-9/11 world, would anybody include how the NYPD treated the citizens it was supposed to be protecting ? Quite possibly the first post-9/11 protest at which the NYPD began to rollout its newer, heavy-handed tactics, which bordered on suppression on public assembly, took place over the first weekend in February 2002, when the World
297 http://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/14/nyregion/2-charged-in-slaying-of-gay-man.html 298 http://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/18/nyregion/july-killing-in-queens-park-is-ruled-bias-related.html
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Economic Forum was taking place at the Waldorf-Astoria. The New York Times reported that police used pens to contain activists.299 Activists were annoyed that police broke up the larger group of activists into smaller groups by forcing them into these barricades. Activists were cut off from one another, reducing their collective impact.300 Activists further complained that the police menaced participants of the demonstration with batons, pepper spray, and threats of other physical force. Collectively, the police tactics were seen by activists as clear forms of intimidation. The NYPDs forceful response to the protests against the World Economic Forum was a harbinger of things to come. Freedoms of assembly and of speech were in the process of being diminished. After 9/11, the Bush administration spent two years ramping up diplomatic and military efforts to invade the nation of Iraq in purported retaliation for the September 11 attacks. In the build-up for war, many Americans viewed the machinations of the Bush administration as a threat to peace, and progressives, liberals, and left-leaning activists began organizing demonstrations to express popular opposition to what was widely regarded as the predisposed war agenda of the Bush administration. To that end, several groups across the nation were organizing constant anti-war protests.301 302 These smaller demonstrations were futile in exerting political pressure on the Bush administration to change its course, and umbrella coalitions were formed from smaller groups in order to coordinate larger demonstrations. The growing anti-war sentiment was leading to larger and
299 http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/03/us/forum-in-new-york-protests-at-least-38-are-arrested-but-rally-
remains-peaceful.html 300 http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0206-03.htm 301 http://web.archive.org/web/20021019184441/http://www.nobloodforoil.org/Protest.htm 302 http://nuclearresister.org/nr131/131bushprotesters.html
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more frequent protests all around the world. One large-scale anti-war demonstration was being planned for New York City for February 15, 2003 -- a day of coordinated, worldwide protests. Organizers of the New York City demonstration were planning a march of about 100,000 people that would pass in front of the United Nations building in Manhattan, but days before the march, police denied the lead organizing group, United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), a police permit for the march. Instead, organizers would have to accept the staging of a stationary rally a few blocks away from the UN, and police told organizers that the rally would have to be limited to 10,000 people. Organizers were rightly concerned that a large turnout of protest participants would be unable to experience the sights and sounds of the rally, if an overflow crowd were diverted several blocks away from the rallys stage. Lawyers for New York City presented evidence of two failed terror plots as evidence that the anti-war demonstration could not take the form of a march, with the implication being that somehow a march was considered more dangerous.303 Officials for New York City also put up other obstacles for protest organizers, including a police request for an estimate of the number of people, who would be participating in the march ; the use of a police scare tactic that it could not guarantee the safety of the march ; the police promise to use pens to accommodate overflow crowds in spite of the NYPDs history of abusing the use of pens ; and the last minute courtroom ambush of introducing two Bush administration federal

303 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/11/nyregion/court-bans-peace-march-in-manhattan.html
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prosecutors into the legal proceedings to cloud the march as a disruption to the UN, according a report published in The New York Times.304 All of the reasons and excuses that the police were offering looked ridiculous to protest organizers, because, to outside observers, it was unclear how organizers could pinpoint an exact estimate of the turnout for a large demonstration. So many factors would determine the final number of participants, such as weather and traffic conditions and the functionality of mass transit. Even The New York Times report estimated the crowd might be large -- in the realm of 100,000 -- but none of this satisfied the police. In fact, police wanted to undercut the estimated turnout to just 10% of that. Protest organizers countered that the city routinely provided security for large marches, such as the annual St. Patricks Day parade. Increasingly, protest organizers saw darker motivations behind the citys actions. 305 Once Barbara Jones, the judge hearing the legal proceeding for the issuance of the march permit application, said that she would not second guess the police and denied organizers a permit to hold the march, organizers knew the fix was in. The NYPD was routinely being sued for violations of civil rights and civil liberties, and it is not known how Judge Jones was able to take the NYPDs promises at face value. [I]t is incomprehensible that the finest police department in the world cannot accommodate a traditional peaceful protest. Given the wealth of precedents for peaceful marches, it is a highly disturbing precedent, Victor A. Kovner, a respected First Amendment lawyer, told The New York Times. This is meant to send a message beyond New York City and it is going to have a chilling effect nationally. I
304 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/11/nyregion/court-bans-peace-march-in-manhattan.html 305 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/11/nyregion/court-bans-peace-march-in-manhattan.html
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think the Bush administration does not like political dissent and has influenced the Bloomberg administration to stop it, said Bill Perkins, a councilmember at the time.306 At every turn in The New York Times recounting of the proceedings, the judge was trusting the police at first blush. The judge accepted the police departments reasoning that a march needed to be planned months in advance, and since the growing anti-war movement was reaching critical mass rather swiftly, it appeared that the NYPD was going to use the excuse of a long lead time to diffuse dissent to the war. And visibly fighting for the right of free speech and free assembly was Councilmember Perkins, who was using his influence in the media as an elected official to put political pressure on the NYPD to act in good faith. While his efforts were noble, he didnt have enough support from other councilmembers like Christine to counteract the mayors and the police commissioners intention to deny the permit to hold the march. On the day of the rally, participants experienced treatment from the police that was eerily reminiscent of the treatment participants received during the Matthew Shepard memorial march, except that instead of 5,000 participants, many, many more than that took part in the February 15 rally. Reporters from The New York Times went with a very conservative midpoint estimate of the number of people, who participated in the New York demonstration. The police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, put the crowd at about 100,000, while the organizers said 400,000 people attended. Given the sea of faces extending more than a mile up First Avenue and the ancillary crowds that were prevented from joining them, it seemed
306 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/11/nyregion/court-bans-peace-march-in-manhattan.html
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that something in between was probable.307 Even though people extended more than a mile from the rallys main stage, The New York Times chose to undercount the turnout. As with the Matthew Shepard memorial march, the police once again deployed horse-mounted police officers, even though the NYPD had a record of using horses to threaten, intimidate, and injure protesters. Subway trains stopped running that day, in what some activists said was an attempt by the Bloomberg administration to deliberately thwart a larger turnout for the rally. Leslie Cagan, one of the principal organizers with UFPJ, told The New York Times, We think this is part of something unfolding nationally, a serious curtailing of civil liberties throughout this country.308 Some activists, who volunteered to facilitate different roles at the rallys stage that day, looked up to see NYPD sharpshooters on the rooftops of nearby buildings. Even though the activists were committed to peace, the police overreacted in their response at every turn. So many rally participants experienced problems with the police that the NYCLU produced a comprehensive report two years later to document the violations and to issue recommendations. The report collected eyewitness accounts of the excessive use of force by the police, police abuse of authority, discourtesy by the police, problems with police pens, police misconduct in Times Square, and police mistreatment of arrested protesters. The NYCLU report documented that the NYPD used horse-mounted police, batons, and pepper spray to control the crowds. The descriptions of the use of pepper spray was described to be in violation of NYPD
307 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/16/nyregion/threats-and-responses-overview-from-new-york-to-
melbourne-cries-for-peace.html 308 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/11/nyregion/court-bans-peace-march-in-manhattan.html
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policy, according to the NYCLU report. During the rally, police even mistreated the press. 309 The NYCLU report concluded with five recommendations. Based on its analysis of the major problems with the NYPD, New York City was urged to : recognize the role of protest marches in the citys tradition ; ensure free access to protest events ; refrain from using force on demonstrators ; revise its policy of using pens ; and revamp its processing of people arrested for minor offense at political demonstrations. These were non-binding suggestions that the NYCLU was publicly making, and their suggestions joined activists views that there was an urgent need for deeper reforms at the NYPD. According to the NYCLU, Christine joined in the effort to call for City Council hearings into the failure of the protest organizers to receive a permit to march, 310 but there was no successful effort to implement the NYCLUs report recommendations. Christine was also a sponsor of a City Council resolution opposing President Bushs seemingly unilateral decision to lead the nation into war with Iraq.311 That was all Christine would do. Half-measures was all the anti-war movement could count on from Christine. As in the Matthew Shepard memorial march, the police use of force against participants in the February 15 anti-war rally triggered lawsuits. The NYCLU filed three lawsuits against the NYPD for various violations of citizens civil rights and civil liberties, including allegations of using horses with the intent to injure
309 http://www.aclu.org/FilesPDFs/nyclu_arresting_protest1.pdf 310 http://www.aclu.org/FilesPDFs/nyclu_arresting_protest1.pdf 311 http://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=438748&GUID=26BD74EA-4658-48C3-B29E-
78897140B6E9&Options=ID|Text|&Search=iraq
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protesters and using barricades to essentially detain, or hold, innocent protesters.312 Lawyers at the NYCLU also filed these lawsuits in anticipation of the large demonstrations expected to be mounted against the next years Republican National Convention, and the lawyers were seeking injunctions against the use of some of the NYPDs controversial tactics. After pleadings and hearings, a judge issued a ruling in one of the cases that declared unconstitutional the NYPDs demonstration-access practices, its use of restrictive pens, and its blanket searching of demonstrators. But because the police department kept invoking fears of terrorism, the judge seemed to give the NYPD authority to conduct public searches without probable cause. 313 From here began a noticeable judicial weakening of the Fourth Amendment. One of the NYCLUs lawyers, Christopher Dunn, testified at least twice before the New York City Council about legal concerns leading up to the 2004 RNC.314 Advocates for the protection of civil rights and civil liberties were searching for support to be able to maintain a check on an out-of-control police force at the start of the convention protests. But the City Council did nothing. As Christines career continued its ascent under Mayor Bloomberg, she played no visible role in the effort to protect the freedoms of assembly and of speech. Bill Dobbs, one of New York magazines 2001 top 101 gay and lesbian New Yorkers, used the influence of the media accorded to him to put pressure on the NYPD and on Mayor Bloomberg to resolve the selection of the terminal site for the planned march against the 2004 RNC. Mr. Dobbs was a spokesperson for UFPJ, and he told The New York Times, The
312 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/19/nyregion/police-face-lawsuits-over-tactics-at-big-protests.html 313 http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/crcl/vol40_2/dunn.pdf 314 http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/crcl/vol40_2/dunn.pdf
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rally site is the centerpiece for solving this, and it's the mayor who needs to take action.315 That which Christine would not do fell upon unelected, civic-minded activists, like Mr. Dobbs, to do. Christine was MIA. To the unease of some lawyers at the NYCLU, the NYPD eventually used brute force against the 2004 RNC protesters. Police began to use large orange netting to form movable barricades against groups of activists, and The New York Times documented that the use of the nets was intended to divide and conquer protesters. Other tactics that police used included swinging batons, making mass arrests, and dragging netting across a street as a barricade to capture protesters for arrest. Reportedly, organizers of the 2004 RNC deliberately picked New York as the host city, because of the NYPDs reputation for cracking down on activists. 316 Police temporarily kept hundreds of arrested activists in inhumane conditions in a dilapidated pier on the Hudson River.317 "When the mayor bid for this convention, part of his argument, to bring either convention here, was that New York City had the only police force to deal with a modern anarchist threat," Kevin Sheekey, a close adviser to Mayor Bloomberg, told The New York Times. "And obviously the Police Department has done that astoundingly well," he added. 318 It was later revealed that, in the time leading up to the 2004 RNC, undercover police were spying on protesters across the nation, in Canada, and as far away as Europe. David Cohen, the former high-ranking CIA intelligence and operations official, who was appointed by Mayor Bloomberg to the newly created post of NYPD
315 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/29/nyregion/protest-group-and-city-at-odds-over-a-march-past-the-
garden.html 316 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/02/politics/campaign/02protest.html 317 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/31/politics/campaign/31arrests.html 318 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/02/politics/campaign/02protest.html
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Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence, was described as the architect of this expanded political surveillance.319 The NYPDs need for control over activists expressing their rights to freely assemble and demonstrate led to a police obsession with requiring activists to seek permission from the police before large demonstrations could take place. To that end, the spin that The New York Times gave to the police response was peppered with four references to activists lack of permits, a slight indication that, in the view of the journalists at The New York Times, a permit was necessary for validation. The relative peace of the 2004 RNC protests compared with the Seattle World Economic Forum protest showed that the NYPD were successful, a sign that the NYPD could make use of intense planning and a well-disciplined use of force to neutralize protests. Notwithstanding the police use of force and other violations against peaceful and innocent protesters, The New York Times gave the NYPD a pass. The 2004 RNC demonstrations triggered still yet more litigation because of violations committed by police, costing the city millions of dollars, tying up the courts, frustrating activists, and impacting the 1,806 people, whom the police had arrested, during the 2004 RNC. What began to definitely emerge from these series of large demonstrations in New York City was that the police would violate their own protocol, trample on the civil rights and civil liberties of activists, and then tie up the court system with litigation to sort it all out after the fact. One group showing foresight in New York City was the NYCLU, but the impact of its precautionary measures was limited, because the police still used tactics to restrict movement and
319 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/25/nyregion/25infiltrate.html
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access by protesters, for example, by using orange nets to trap protesters, and police were caught engaged in large-scale surveillance of activists, which was in violation of the Handschu Agreement. All these tactics pointed to a new NYPD strategy : violate the rules first, then deal with the courts later. Indeed, Mayor Bloomberg told The New York Times that if the NYPD engaged in the false arrests of innocent activists, then there was a way to deal with the false arrests after the fact. You cant arrest 1,800 people without having somebody in the middle who shouldnt have been arrested, Mayor Bloomberg said. Thats what the courts are there to find out afterwards. Even though police should only have probably cause to make arrests, Mayor Bloomberg seemed to be advocating throwing out the need for probable cause. To him, this essential constitutional standard, derived from the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, was expendable. The NYCLU put out another massive report, documenting the NYPDs violations during the 2004 RNC, making still yet more recommendations for police reform.320 In one of the Harvard law reviews, NYCLU attorney Christopher Dunn recounted the then emerging pattern of the NYPDs attack on each of freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, and probable cause, among other civil rights and civil liberties : Since September 11, the NYPD has sought to impose an unprecedented level of control over protest activity , assigning huge numbers of officers to events and imposing substantial physical constraints on demonstrators, pervasive videotaping of protesters and blanket fingerprinting of those arrested and charged with the most minor of offenses, ... the need for advocacy has become more pressing.

320 http://www.nyclu.org/pdfs/rnc_report_083005.pdf
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The attorneys at the NYCLU were fulfilling their public role as staff of a robust advocacy group. The executive branch of the local government, inclusive of the mayor and the NYPD, and the legislative branch, meaning the New York City Council, were unresponsive to community needs for urgent action to protect the civil rights and civil liberties of activists. The only branch of government left was the court system, and the NYCLU had a lot of expertise in litigating for court orders and rulings for these legal protections. Of course, the NYCLU had no authority on its own -- it relied on courts to issue binding orders or rulings. But what happens when the NYPD openly violates the third branch of government ? The NYCLU tried exercising its goodwill and influence in other ways, especially with the media -- a model of influence that we all saw Christine master in the form of her constant media placements. When it was revealed that the NYPD were interrogating activists about their past political activities and recording this information in a database, the NYCLU turned to the media to put pressure on the police to end this interrogation practice.321 322 What the NYCLU might have lacked as direct authority in the government, it made up by having great influence, especially in the eyes of the media. The use of the media to help shape public opinion to make demands for reform in the police department was something Christine did not take up, not like she once did, not anymore. One could understand why the executive branch of the New York City government would enable the police to continue violating the civil rights and civil liberties of protesters. Mayor Bloomberg was doing the bidding of President Bush.
321 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/10/nyregion/police-stop-collecting-data-on-protesters-politics.html 322 http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/crcl/vol40_2/dunn.pdf
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Although Mayor Bloomberg had formerly been a self-described Democrat before his run for the mayors office in 2001, after he came into office, it became clear that his policies were to the right of the progressive sensibilities in New York City. But what would explain the response of the City Council, and of Christine herself ? Remember, the City Council always comprised a super-majority of Democrats. And what role would Christine, as just one member of the City Council, have ? Why would progressives pick her out of the entire council for special scrutiny ? During her time at AVP, Christine had expressed a sensibility and an empathy for victims of violent attack. Her whole career could be traced back to the myth that she was an advocate for justice. How many times would the NYPD engage in well-documented behavior that treated innocent activists with violence, brutality, and infringement of their rights before Christine would speak up to advocate for justice ? On the issue of police brutality, Christines myth was finally exposed to be a sham. Her silence on police brutality would leave her vulnerable to criticism, and this issue would come back to haunt her career again and again. After the February 15 anti-war rally, progressives, including supporters of the NYCLUs efforts to keep the police in check, pushed the City Council to pass two resolutions. These resolutions came about because of the lingering sting of the anti- war rallys failure to receive a march permit. That other demonstrations were subsequently denied permits, or were subjected to police actions to subvert demonstrations, added fuel to the fire.323 The first resolution, which was adopted on February 4, 2004, called upon federal, state, and local officials, including city
323 http://www.scribd.com/doc/153745915/New-York-City-Council-2004-06-16-2004-RNC-Permit-
Committee-Report
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agencies such as the NYPD, to affirm and uphold the civil rights and civil liberties of citizens wishing to hold political demonstrations in New York City. Christine was one of its sponsors.324 The second resolution, passed on June 28, 2004, called on all government officials to uphold the First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, association, and assembly. Again, Christine was one of its sponsors.325 These nonbinding resolutions were all that the City Council could muster. There was no more that New York City residents, be they activists or not, could expect in terms of oversight and accountability with regards to the NYPDs record of violating the First and Fourth Amendments. While it is true that a resolution does lend the authority and influence of the City Councils support to the cause of protecting civil rights and civil liberties, the City Council was capable of doing more, and it didnt. In the hearings leading up to the adoption of the first resolution, it was clear that the NYPD was engaging in serious violations. A special report from the City Council Committee on Governmental Operations showed that, In the aftermath of the numerous confrontations between demonstrators and police at the February 15th rally the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) investigated 54 complaints containing 114 allegations of misconduct by police officers.326 Among the NYPD violations the report found was that the police departments Technical Assistance Response Unit provided to CCRB heavily edited videos in a deliberate effort to disguise the police officers who committed violations. Thus, many complaints were
324 http://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=441286&GUID=8EC0E66A-5C51-4537-A8B2-
27B03D873334&Options=ID|Text|&Search=civil+liberties 325 http://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=442361&GUID=CBB0CCE6-DF23-49D2-9FEB- 1517C9231B8D&Options=ID|Text|&Search=first+amendment+resolution 326 http://www.scribd.com/doc/153745915/New-York-City-Council-2004-06-16-2004-RNC-Permit- Committee-Report
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dropped where the officers went unidentified. 327 This is how the NYPD operated when it knew its actions were not going to be supervised or subject to any accountability. How were the City Council resolutions going to address the underlying and ongoing violations of the NYPD ? But Christines career was on a rising arc. In 2006, Christine was elected as the new speaker of the City Council. Her new position would change the balance of power within the City Council, and she would reach a new height in government almost diametrically opposite Mayor Bloomberg. Suddenly, Christine would move front and center in the publics efforts to rein in the NYPD. Her role in watering down the recommendations of the Giuliani police brutality commission were going to come full circle now that she would assume the second-most powerful office in city government, with unrivaled opportunities to use her authority and influence for improving oversight and accountability at the NYPD. In her first year as speaker, Christine rapidly became the public face of City Council efforts to negotiate with the NYPD new rules regarding the permit application requirements for activists wishing to hold public demonstrations in New York City. The NYPDs proposed rules for applying for protest permits were initially being shaped in connection with meetings among the police, Bloomberg administration officials, and members of the City Council. Those meetings led to easing what were initially harsh restrictions that the police were seeking. Christine was quoted in The New York Times as taking issue with the restrictions being sought by the NYPD, and she laid out an expectation that the City Council would be part of
327 http://www.scribd.com/doc/153745915/New-York-City-Council-2004-06-16-2004-RNC-Permit-
Committee-Report
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the solution. We look forward to working with the administration to develop guidelines that address the need for the permitting of large groups, while also respecting New Yorkers right to gather freely, she said. A few months later, however, the NYPD unilaterally imposed a new requirement that activists seeking to demonstrate in New York City would need to apply for a protest permit if the number of protesters exceeded 50 people. Advocates for protecting civil rights and civil liberties were outraged that the City Council played no role in promulgating the new protest permit requirement.328 Two years before, the City Council had passed two resolutions calling for respecting the First and Fourth Amendments, but the City Council would have no say in the promulgation of the NYPDs new protest permit requirement. As speaker of the City Council, Christine allowed this abdication of responsibility to occur. Christine had willingly subjugated her progressive ideals in exchange for receiving greater political power. She thought that appeasing the mayor was the price a politician paid in order to move up within the broken political system. It no longer mattered to Christine that police used outright violence against activists. She cared not that police violated court orders and even their own protocol. And it seemed to not even register that the NYPD had now reached a point where police officers could thwart citizens rights to petition their own government for a redress of grievances. For years, police argued that their use of brutality was justified by threats to public safety caused by the endless war on terror. Little could the police see that they themselves had become a threat to public safety in their own right.
328 http://nysun.com/new-york/nypd-imposes-new-rules-for-gaining-parade-permits/47847/
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One year after the new NYPD rule took effect, an LGBT activist group called Radical Homosexual Agenda organized a series of protests against Christine for her enabling of the NYPD protest permit rules.329 Activists from Radical Homosexual Agenda infiltrated her 2007 Pride Week kick-off event at the City Council chambers, where activists dramatically dropped banners from the upper balcony to shame Christine. One of the banners showed a raised clenched fist next to the wording, Stonewall was an un-permitted action ! Another banner depicted a similar clenched fist next to the wording, Free assembly got you where you are!330 It was not lost on members from Radical Homosexual Agenda that Christines sensibilities had radically changed since the Matthew Shepard memorial march. Members of Radical Homosexual Agenda wrote on their Web site, Back then, Quinn was outraged by the cops' behavior. How could she have changed so much since then that she has colluded with them to make this kind of political action even more difficult for all minorities and marginalized political groups? 331 Criticism from the LGBT community no longer mattered to Christine. Sure it stung, but she had become the City Council speaker now. She didnt need instant approval anymore. She had made the deals she needed to make to get to where she was. She had battled against the system for years to work her way up as a political insider. Shed made sacrifices, had to endure public pressure from voters, and had suffered the expectations people had of her maintaining herself true to progressive values. Shed come so far, and she wasnt going to let outrage from her own LGBT power base upset her plans for more
329 http://www.radicalhomosexualagenda.org/parade_wout_9-07.html 330 http://www.radicalhomosexualagenda.org/quinn_zap_cityhall07.html 331 http://www.radicalhomosexualagenda.org/quinn_zap_cityhall07.html
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power. As we look into how it came to be that Christine made the insider deals to climb her way into a leadership position over the entire City Council, we will also see that she wasnt about to go backward.
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Chapter 8
Before Christine was selected to be speaker of the City Council in 2006, she was appointed to be the chair of the City Council Health Committee in 2002. She didnt earn this post. Rather, she made a deal with Speaker Miller in order to be given the leadership position. The raw political machinations that went into her appointment to lead the Health Committee served as a precursor for the backroom deals that would lead to her speakership only four years later. The exchanging and trading of promises and favors would have nothing to do with serving the best interest of voters. Instead, the accords reached by insiders would only further the self-interests of politicians, party bosses, lobbyists, and political operatives. This would be when the broken political system would tempt Christine to turn her back on what little remained of each of her activist values, her progressive political ethics, and her concern for her constituency, if she ever really had any. One reason society stops short of making progress at the legal and economic root-level of issues is because the elements that distort or corrupt our representative form of government pre-screen who gets to move up into positions of leadership in government. Politicians, who are predisposed to supporting big business interests, are the ones who advance into positions of leadership. Reviewing the health issues facing New York City before delving into the machinations of Christines climb up the leadership ranks would lay the groundwork to understand the dire municipal health issues that Christine would face as speaker, and it would serve to later confirm Christines predisposition to big business interests.
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In Christines first year in public office, she was busy settling into the City Council when Eliot Spitzer, then the state attorney general, launched a very public fight to save the Manhattan Eye, Ear, and Throat Hospital, known as MEETH, from closing. MEETH was described to be losing about $2 million a month, and MEETHs board of directors was led, at the time, by Lindsay Herkness, a Wall Street executive, and he wanted to sell MEETH for pennies on the dollar to Memorial Sloan Kettering in a deal that would allow some land to be sold off to a luxury housing developer. Even though MEETH was known for providing cosmetic surgery in the fancy Upper East Side neighborhood of Manhattan, doctors and healthcare officials were worried about the loss of the underlying healthcare infrastructure, which included 17 state- of-the-art operating rooms and its residency program. 332 By trying to save MEETH, Mr. Spitzer was demonstrating that there was a role for public officials to act as advocates for public health when New York Citys and New York States health commissioners were caught sleeping on the job. Hospitals were bulky buildings, sitting on giant footprints, with attractive grandfathered zoning exceptions or variances. Developers salivated at the opportunity of getting their hands on such properties for speculative real estate conversions. Admittedly, it was rare that a state attorney general would launch a public fight to save a hospital from closing,333 but Mr. Spitzer was a rare politician, with an ethic to fight executives and boards of directors to make things right. Either to emulate Mr. Spitzer or to burnish her image, Christine experimented with her platform as chair of the City Council Health Committee to
332 http://observer.com/1999/10/eliot-spitzer-stops-41-million-sale-of-deluxe-hospital/ 333 http://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/15/nyregion/deal-struck-to-save-upper-east-side-hospital.html
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add to her public myth by appearing to be an advocate for public health. But because Christine was adopting favor-trading in her political approach as an elected official, her record on health issues would be unprincipled and inconsistent. In the beginning, Christine followed the pattern of using her roots as an activist to fight against healthcare cuts. In her usual tradition, Christine would organize press conferences at the steps of City Hall to denounce any proposed elimination to healthcare budgets. Christines advocacy hinged on the presence of cameras. Since moving into City Council, Christine would develop what one source described as a predictable pattern of speaking to the media about an important issue in exchange for the sound bite, only to return to her office once the press conference was over, whereupon she would then allow the issue to yield to inertia. This cycle of playing to the cameras would be the primary reason Christine wouldnt produce results for the community, because the only results Christine was seeking was the photo op itself -- and not anything beyond that. The reason she was chair of the Health Committee in the first place, was because of her close working relationship with Speaker Miller and the favor trading that took place, not because she had a resolute commitment to transforming public health. Christine was going to run the Health Committee based on her own brand of political expediency. Early in the Bloomberg administration, the mayor reacted to the damage to the city budget caused by the September 11 attacks by proposing a huge property tax increase. This tax was enacted in order to avoid some very painful budget cuts caused by increased spending and a precipitous drop in taxes resulting from the economic shocks of the attacks. Among the cuts that Mayor Bloomberg was
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proposing were $1.5 million in possible cuts to public libraries, $2.5 million in proposed cuts to fund ambulance services, and an estimated $885,000.00 in funds that would be cut from week-end meals for the elderly. 334 Only in a sinister Republican worldview would it be O.K. to propose taking away meals from senior citizens, but this was how Mayor Bloomberg began his budget negotiations. He would go on to target unions and a host of core municipal services, including healthcare. One way that the billionaire mayor wanted to save money in the years after 9/11 was by proposing to close approximately a dozen child health clinics and two tuberculosis clinics in order to eliminate their costs from the 2004 budget. In response, Christine used press conferences to denounce the healthcare cuts.335 336
337 While her efforts seemed to be one way to shape public opinion against the
mayors budget cuts, in reality, the mayor, Christine, and the other councilmembers were engaged in a twisted budget negotiation game of pretense. The usual script goes like this : the mayor proposes cuts, the Council objects, and then the mayor restores some but not all of the cuts in a final deal, is how The New York Times described the budget cuts game. 338 All of the press conferences in opposition to the mayors draconian budget cuts were farcical, because it was usually expected that the mayors budget cuts would generally be reversed. The New York Times added that many councilmembers use the restoration of budget items as a campaign tool, which the councilmembers could use to demonstrate to their voters their successful
334 http://articles.nydailynews.com/2002-11-24/news/18202256_1_property-tax-tax-hike-mayor-bloomberg 335 http://www.villagevoice.com/2003-06-17/news/fighting-the-good-fight/ 336 http://www.citylimits.org/news/articles/1420/tb-clinics-face-closure-despite-increase-in-cases 337 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/17/nyregion/city-council-spars-with-bloomberg-over-lead-paint-
legislation.html 338 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/25/nyregion/likely-accord-on-city-budget-averts-cuts.html
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record of saving services.339 Municipal politicians were engaged in a charade, and the devastating impact was that community groups, activists, and voters were expending resources to respond to these deceptive budget cuts. Incumbent politicians, who were engaged in this sick and twisted budget game, were using the community as a pawn to look good in the media for the next election cycle. The impact of elected officials manipulating core human rights, such as access to healthcare, would undermine the ability of some community healthcare facilities to properly plan for their long-term budgets. The September 11 attacks opened up huge budget deficits in New York City, New York State, and the U.S. federal government. Republican control in New York City, Albany, and Washington was resulting in a uniform attack on the social safety net to finance the global war on terror plus the new Republican agenda that favored deregulation of commerce. In Washington, President Bush enacted a sweeping cut in marginal tax rates in the summer before the September 11 attacks, setting the stage for irresponsible budget deficits once the president wrongly led the nation into war.340 The 2001 federal income tax cuts would disproportionately benefit the highest income earners and led, over the next decade, to a concentration of wealth for the very rich. In Albany, the Republican governor was about to launch into a scorched earth campaign against hospitals. And in New York City, where the post- 9/11 economic collapse was most severe, Mayor Bloombergs budgets were forced to include drastic measures, in spite of his sensibility for fiscal conservatism. The

339 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/25/nyregion/likely-accord-on-city-budget-averts-cuts.html 340 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Growth_and_Tax_Relief_Reconciliation_Act_of_2001
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mayor hiked property taxes in 2002, 341 and he approved a slight, temporary surcharge on high income earners in 2003. 342 While Mayor Bloombergs actions to raise taxes was admirable, when compared to the irresponsible fiscal policies in Washington, Mayor Bloomberg still kept proposing ridiculous cuts to the social safety net. And the heaviest relative tax burden was borne by everybody but the wealthy. For example, the impact of the property tax hike on landlords trickled down to tenants. To further protect the wealthiest New York City residents from having to pay their fair share, Mayor Bloomberg relied on financial aid from New York State and the federal government to help patch the city budget.343 Those with the most made little to no sacrifices for the many with the least. New Yorkers would live under constant mayoral threats to close firehouses, to layoff teachers, and to attack municipal unions -- so much so that these threats became an annual budgetary game transparent to the media, but not transparent enough to voters to put an end to it. Mayor Bloomberg would engage in this budgetary game to distract the public from his larger agenda for mayoral control over the school system, his outsourcing of government technology contracts, and his plans to bust through zoning across New York City. This larger agenda would create large transfers of wealth from the public sector to the private sector of the economy. His plan for gentrification, for example, would intentionally provide tax breaks and other economic incentives to wealth landlords, and these plans would accelerate the misplacement of low income and middle class New Yorkers out of Manhattan and
341 http://articles.nydailynews.com/2002-11-24/news/18202256_1_property-tax-tax-hike-mayor-bloomberg 342 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/25/nyregion/likely-accord-on-city-budget-averts-cuts.html 343 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/25/nyregion/likely-accord-on-city-budget-averts-cuts.html
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other valuable areas of New York City. Under the conditions of unstable budgets and politically expedient budgetary games, Christine would serve as chair of the City Council Health Committee for the first four years of the Bloomberg administration. During this time, Gov. Pataki appointed a Wall Street insider, Stephen Berger, to oversee a state panel charged with the task of making cuts to Medicaid.344 Everywhere that Republicans were in control, they were launching efforts to make cuts to programs and services that benefited the most in need : children, the elderly, the infirm, and the most frail. Here was Christines opportunity to do something about it. She came into power as part of the LGBT communitys response to the AIDS pandemic. One of Christines mandates was to be an advocate for healthcare and to fight against discrimination, including and especially to defend the provision of healthcare for the voiceless, but Christine never responded to the Berger Commissions plans to make large cuts to Medicaid. In the early years during the AIDS pandemic in New York City, the issue of access to full-service hospital care became critical to the people with AIDS. At that time, there was no effective treatment for immune deficiency. People diagnosed with cases of AIDS-related complex faced death. When people became gravely ill with uncontrollable opportunistic infections, the only known form of treatment was hospitalization or, ultimately, some form of hospice-like care. But New York City had been shrinking the sizes of hospitals in the time leading up to the AIDS pandemic. Consequently, the hospital infrastructure was woefully inadequate once hundreds of people with AIDS began to flood the hospital system during the early 1980s. Not
344 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/nyregion/19hospital.html
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until 1987 did New York City finally begin to examine how hospitals could be fully utilized to treat people with AIDS. St. Clares Hospital near Midtown Manhattan would be designated to only treat AIDS patients345 in a controversial plan that seemed like healthcare officials were trying to segregate care.346 Placing people with AIDS into an isolated facility was a source of great controversy to the LGBT community. The 1980s saw a rise of AIDS phobia and discrimination, and putting people with AIDS into what seemed like isolation was construed to be an attempt at creating a leper-like colony for AIDS patients. City health officials were compromising the equality and dignity of people with AIDS, and the communitys response was to promote politicians, like Christine, to make sure that social injustice in the provision of healthcare never happened again. As part of the healthcare response to AIDS, city health officials finally took action to expand the number of hospital beds to accommodate the influx people with of AIDS,347 348 but expand was a relative term, since what health officials did was decrease the number of hospital beds that were being decommissioned. Moreover, the criticism of segregating AIDS patients into one singular facility didnt stop Andrew Cuomo, who was son of Gov. Mario Cuomo, from undertaking in 1989 an effort to build an AIDS-only health center in the Bronx that was intended to provide targeted healthcare services to AIDS patients rather than have people with AIDS take up space in full-service hospitals.349 Again, the appearance of segregation could not be overlooked. More cases of social injustice took place in that time. For
345 http://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/28/nyregion/new-york-plans-to-turn-hospital-into-aids-center.html 346 http://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/30/nyregion/st-clare-s-is-in-turmoil-over-state-s-aids-plan.html 347 http://www.nytimes.com/1987/12/18/nyregion/new-york-adds-hospital-beds-to-treat-aids.html 348 http://www.nytimes.com/1987/12/25/us/hospital-bed-shortage-tied-to-type-of-aids-cases.html 349 http://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/16/nyregion/center-for-66-aids-patients-to-be-built-in-the-bronx.html
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example, in 1990, NYU Medical Center was accused of keeping two men with AIDS in the corridors of the hospital without finding them hospital rooms for accommodation.350 Instances of discrimination like these were Sen. Duanes and Christines shared raison dtre. Treating people differently based on their identity rather than on the seriousness of their illnesses was the sort of discrimination that Christine was expected to fight. Before the economic crisis caused by the September 11 attacks, the last time New York City faced dire budgetary constraints was during the 1970s, when the city was facing financial ruin. Back then, the city was suffering from a collapse of each of its social order, its budgetary funding, and its own infrastructure. In that economic contraction, the city closed many hospitals and reduced the services of remaining hospitals. Many hospital closings, like the controversial closing of Sydenham Hospital in Harlem, seemed to take place in low-income communities,351 and the austerity cuts being demanded by the citys banking and big business interests were unfairly targeting communities that had been traditionally underserved.352 Christine became the chair of the City Council Health Committee about two decades, more or less, after the worst of the 1970s financial crisis and after the first reported AIDS cases. When Christine came into public office, she did so under the banner of an advocate, who would fight on behalf of those less fortunate. She was charged with taking up the mantle of advocacy left by Sen. Duane. She promised
350 http://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/21/nyregion/hospital-accused-of-keeping-2-aids-patients-in-
hallway.html 351 http://www.nytimes.com/1987/12/18/nyregion/new-york-adds-hospital-beds-to-treat-aids.html 352 http://www.scribd.com/doc/79603457/City-Limits-Magazine-February-1983-Issue#page=4
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voters that she brought to her official capacity sensibilities about what it meant to be treated differently based on her identity as a woman and as a lesbian. As a result of these promises, voters elected Christine into government. She was now part of the political inside. She and other public officials, their appointees, and government bureaucrats would decide changes to public healthcare policy. Following 9/11, New York City and New York State once again faced budget cuts in billions of dollars, and given the predictable pattern of how past austerity cuts had targeted people of color and those with lesser financial means, how would Christine respond to government efforts to make wholesale healthcare cuts ? After enough community resources had been deployed as part of the farcical budget game, the two tuberculosis clinics that had been targeted by Mayor Bloomberg for closure in the 2004 city budget were saved from elimination nine months into the fiscal year. The intention of closing the two TB clinics was to save $279,000.00353 out of a budget of over $47 billion.354 But the two TB clinics were saved only for the duration of that fiscal year, and, three months later, once the next fiscal year would begin, Christine would have to fight for those clinics again, even though the city was at that time experiencing a TB rate higher than the national average. 355 But the conditioning was already established : the safety net underpinning public health in New York City was perpetually facing budget cuts, even though some of these important services cost such a small fraction of the citys budget. At the same time that the city was facing an elevated TB rate, infant
353 http://articles.nydailynews.com/2004-03-26/local/18259006_1_cuts-in-other-city-budget-city-services 354 http://comptroller.nyc.gov/wp-content/uploads/documents/cafr2004.pdf 355 http://articles.nydailynews.com/2004-03-26/local/18259006_1_cuts-in-other-city-budget-city-services
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mortality jumped in the Bronx by an astonishing rate of 12.8%.356 Against this backdrop, Gov. Patakis Working Group on Health Care, headed by the Wall Street banker Stephen Berger, announced that the state would aim higher in its quest to cut healthcare : it would begin to close entire hospitals.357 To propagandize the hospital closings, the working group was renamed to Health Care Facilities in the 21st Century.358 Of all people, why was Mr. Berger selected by Gov. Pataki to lead a commission charged with closing New York hospitals ? During the aftermath of the 1970s fiscal crisis that gripped New York City, Mr. Berger served as the executive director of the New York State Emergency Financial Control Board for the city.359 360 To carry out the severe austerity cuts demanded by Wall Street bankers and big business interests, Mr. Berger, among other actions, slashed the subsidies that New York City paid to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. One consequence of Mr. Bergers cuts to the MTA has been the dramatic and relentless increases in subway and bus fares endured by users of the citys mass transit system. Mr. Berger wanted to wreck havoc on healthcare in much the same way. A calculating political insider, Mr. Berger had also served as the executive director of the Port Authority ; as chairman of a private equity firm, Odyssey Investment Partners, LLC ; 361 and as a political campaign consultant for each of Senate candidate Richard Ottinger, Representative Jonathan Bingham, and Representative and one-time Republican
birth-weight 357 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/nyregion/19hospital.html 358 http://www.nysun.com/new-york/hospitals-bankruptcy-filing-precedes-report/43695/ 359 Carroll, Maurice. Control Board Chief; Stephen Berger. The New York Times 09 March 1976: 47. Print. 360 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/nyregion/fyi-633992.html 361 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/01/nyregion/bloomberg-administration-port-authority-get-closer- possible-land-swap-deal.html
356 http://articles.nydailynews.com/2004-08-31/local/18271347_1_infant-mortality-rate-rate-last-year-low-
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mayoral candidate Herman Badillo.362 363 During Mr. Bergers supervision of the citys budget during the financial crisis of the 1970s, he was accused of trying to destroy the citys Health and Hospitals Corporation, which runs the citys public hospitals. His management style was alternatively described as sarcastic, plaintive, caustic, philosophical and hortatory. 364 Since Mr. Berger had proven himself under Gov. Hugh Carey to be predisposed to be a hatchetman365 for hire, Mr. Berger could be counted on to carry out ruthless budget cuts with a sense of moral and ethical impunity. Therefore, he was a natural pick for Gov. Pataki to lead the charge to indiscriminately close hospitals. Mr. Berger was comfortable reviving the role of the bad cop to Gov. Patakis good cop in the 2000s, an arrangement he had successfully played opposite Gov. Carey during the 1970s fiscal crisis. Mr. Bergers serial roles within government were provided to him after he had proved himself reliable to political insiders because of his predisposition to carrying out wholesale budget cuts without remorse. Since Mr. Berger only served in appointed capacities, he was never directly accountable to voters, even though he would ravage the MTAs finances, and this would lead to commuters having to largely pay for the agencys costs. And politicians, who were keen to insulate themselves from unpopular budget cuts, sought Mr. Berger as a reliable hatchetman by proxy. His inclination to cut city subsidies to public transportation and public hospitals was useful to a certain political agenda that wanted to attack the social
362 Carroll, Maurice. Control Board Chief; Stephen Berger. The New York Times 09 March 1976: 47. Print. 363 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/27/nyregion/in-battle-for-mayor-badillo-to-enlist-guerrillas.html 364 Weisman, Steven R. Carey's Tough Blocking-Back at City Hall The New York Times 08 February 1977: 33.
Print. 365 Clines, Francis X. "About New York; Saga of Stephen Berger: Politics to Academia." The New York Times 08 October 1977: 39. Print.
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safety net. As Mr. Berger was launching into his latest effort to destroy New York hospitals, he would test Christines myth as an advocate in the realm of public health. Mr. Bergers scorched earth campaign against hospitals would also converge with Christines impending leadership maneuvering. In the time leading up to the recommendations in the Berger Commission Report, as the hit list of hospitals that would be targeted for closure by the Berger Commission came to be known, Christine was focused on public health issues for New York City. She championed through the City Council a controversial bill proposed by Mayor Bloomberg to ban cigarette smoking.366 Christine mounted her own campaign to rid schools of junk food.367 She criticized the Health and Hospitals Corporation for not providing information to patients about a prescription drug discounts program.368 And as chair of the Health Committee, Christine was critical of the Bloomberg administrations ambitious plans to make advances in public health in the face of constant budget cuts.369 But Christine was cautious to only delve into safe issues, or issues from which she could score political points with the powerful billionaire mayor. Where before Christine had been willing to challenge the political system as an activist, now that she was an insider, she was selective about which issues to really embrace. For example, since Christine was already waging a public fight against the mayors plan for the West Side Stadium, she was unwilling to challenge the mayors divisive plan to ban cigarette smoking. Even
366 http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/19/nyregion/smoking-bill-is-adopted-as-council-ends-its-year.html 367 http://articles.nydailynews.com/2002-11-11/news/18212811_1_vending-machines-after-school-snack-
soda 368 http://articles.nydailynews.com/2003-09-15/news/18237496_1_new-yorkers-hhc-prescription-drugs 369 http://articles.nydailynews.com/2004-03-24/news/18258878_1_new-yorkers-health-commissioner- thomas-frieden-flu-shots
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though the cigarette ban seemed like an attempt at imposing a moralizing, socially- engineered construct on New Yorkers, Christine still pushed the mayors plan through the City Council, giving the mayor an important public victory. But there were other serious public health challenges, including having to deal with outbreaks of SARS, the West Nile virus, and anthrax agents and other bioterrorism threats in a post-9/11 world.370 Why was Christine prioritizing the elimination of cigarette smoking in restaurants and lounges and junk food in schools, but not protecting hospital infrastructure for possible future outbreaks of new or existing diseases ? Before Christines campaign for a higher leadership post in the City Council could be fully understood, and before the Berger Commission would carry out its hospital closings, Christines relationship with Speaker Miller needs to be reviewed. The City Council speaker for Mayor Bloombergs first term in office was Gifford Miller. It was to his wagon which Christine had hitched her career. Speaker Miller had helped Christine provide taxpayer money to seed the High Line park in her council district, and he had also rewarded Christine with a leadership position in exchange for her help in his own speakership campaign. Right after the 2001 election, Speaker Miller faced a dilemma : because of a technicality in the term limits law, he was going to have to leave public office after only a series of three partial, consecutive terms in office that would not add up to eight years.371 One of Speaker Millers major legislative priorities was to change the term limits law so that the limit of consecutive terms for councilmembers would not be two terms of uneven years, but instead be changed to two full terms of 8 years. Terms of uneven years
370 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/30/nyregion/health-chief-is-a-doctor-comfortable-with-orders.html 371 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gifford_Miller
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were due to circumstances that would sometimes create two-year terms for some councilmembers, a situation that Speaker Miller himself was facing, 372 or partial terms caused by the early exit of incumbents. The entire City Council voted on Speaker Millers measure to extend term limits to cure this inconsistency, and Christine voted to approve Speaker Millers amendment. Mayor Bloomberg vetoed the bill, but his veto was over-ridden by the City Council.373 With the exception of the West Side Stadium, Christine had more or less largely stayed on Mayor Bloombergs good side, the farcical budget get notwithstanding, but Speaker Miller believed that the City Council should serve as a check on the mayors office. One measure of Speaker Millers willingness to challenge the mayors powers was that Speaker Miller led the City Council to override 38 of the mayors vetoes during his speakership.374 Perhaps because the mayors powers were being kept in check by Speaker Miller, Mayor Bloomberg would not support Speaker Millers 2002 efforts to amend the term limits law. At a time of excessive cynicism about so many of our institutions, I believe that elected officials should seek at every opportunity to maintain and enhance the trust of the citizens, Mayor Bloomberg wrote in his official veto statement, reminiscent of our previous term limits hero, Councilmember Fiala. This bill would send an unfortunate message about the impact and importance of their votes and set a perilous precedent for future leaders of this city, Mayor Bloomberg wrote, adding, I believe it is simply inappropriate for those members to seek to change those
372 http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/25/nyregion/city-council-passes-measure-on-term-limits-
disparity.html 373 http://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=438347&GUID=83B49B0B-6E0A-43EA-AB07- 0AA9A51CBD20&Options=ID|Text|&Search=term+limits 374 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/quinn-article-1.1303651
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rules in a manner that may work to their own advantage.375 After a Brooklyn State Supreme Court judge threw out the City Council term limits amendment, Speaker Miller appealed the court ruling, and he was joined by Mayor Bloomberg, even though the mayor had vetoed the term limits amendment.376 At first blush, Mayor Bloombergs opposition to amending the term limits law seemed to rest on principle, but there was more to it than just that. Upon Mr. Millers selection as speaker, he instantly became the second most powerful elected official in New York City. This was a very visible platform from which Speaker Miller could launch a mayoral campaign in the next election cycle to challenge Mayor Bloomberg. Indeed, the Gotham Gazette portrayed Speaker Millers leadership coup as immediately transforming him into one of a handful of top tier Democratic candidates for the 2005 mayoral campaign.377 The need to amend the term limits law was crucial for Speaker Miller, if he wanted to use the powers of his office and incumbency privilege to his advantage to mount a mayoral campaign in 2005. The political realities of Speaker Millers motivations were all the more present to Mayor Bloomberg, who, in turn, was in a position to use his own incumbency to thwart Speaker Millers plans. In New York City, it was possible for politicians to survey the landscape for possible competitors for future office and to take peremptory action against them. Speaker Miller needed the two year extension to his political career that his amendment to the term limits law would give him, because it would allow
375 http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/21/nyregion/bloomberg-vetoes-easing-of-council-s-term-limits.html 376 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/29/nyregion/mayor-and-speaker-appealing-court-ruling-on-term-
limits.html 377 http://old.gothamgazette.com/article/governing/20030423/17/359
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Speaker Miller to stay in office long enough to put him in a powerful position from which he could challenge Mayor Bloomberg for the mayoralty in the 2005 election. Christine found herself caught between the powerful mayor on one side, and her very influential political ally, Speaker Miller, on the other, and once again Christine saw how term limits could be changed not through referenda, but through the City Council. The New York LGBT media supported Speaker Millers efforts to amend the term limits law, because the amendment would have a positive effect on the LGBT caucus in City Council, which, at that time, included Christine, Philip Reed, and Margarita Lopez.378 Even though Christine was unencumbered by the term limits law, yet, Ethan Geto a powerful gay rights activists turn lobbyist underscored Christines ability to address health issues and other pressing social service issues confronting LGBT persons in New York City as a partial rationale for advocating for the term limits amendment. Mr. Geto was a powerful supporter of Speaker Miller. Mr. Geto was among the top 101 influential gay and lesbian New Yorkers on New York magazines list of the year prior, and, given his platform, it was Mr. Getos duty to provide political cover in the media379 for Christines closest political ally, Speaker Miller, and the term limits law amendment. As a lobbyist, Mr. Geto was also acting out of self-interest ; if he could provide favors to Speaker Miller and to Christine, Mr. Geto would be able to come back and ask for favors in return, in accordance with Christines political philosophy of favor trading. Eventually, the City Council speakers effort to change term limits survived litigation,380 and Christine
378 http://204.2.109.187/gcn214/councilgay.html 379 http://observer.com/2002/06/giffs-gamble-plans-to-revoke-termlimit-law/ 380 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/20/nyregion/court-says-council-s-speaker-and-5-others-may-run-
again.html
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saw how Speaker Miller, her powerful political ally, succeeded in bending the system in his favor. She saw how Speaker Millers efforts were only meant to further his own career prospects in politics for the 2005 election cycle. Because Speaker Miller won the right to amend the term limits law, he went on to run for reelection to the City Council in the 2003 election cycle, keeping him in office as the speaker for the 2005 election year cycle. In the 2005 Gay Pride Parade, Speaker Miller marched alongside Christine in a public showing of their close political partnership. Their unity was an effort by Christine to offer to Speaker Miller the goodwill of the LGBT community,381 the same way Christine had used the Gay Pride Parade as a way to fluff the political campaigns of Sen. Hillary Clinton and Mr. Hevesi, the failed 2001 Democratic mayoral candidate. Meanwhile, Christine maintained her press appearances leading up to the 2005 election. She raised almost $275,000.00 in campaign donations in that election cycle. Christine accepted $1,500.00 from Gary Barnett, a real estate developer from the Intel and Extell groups, the latter which would go on to sponsor the luxury housing development known as One57 near Central Park South. His second wife, Ayala Barnett, contributed $2,750.00 to Christines 2005 campaign account. Douglas Durst, from the powerful real estate family, contributed $1,500.00. Raizy Haas and Hepzi Schechter each contributed $1,000.00 to Christines campaign account. At the time, they disclosed that they worked for the same real estate firm as Mr. Barnett. The Meilman family, which stood to make tens of millions of dollars, if not more, from inflated real estate values tied to the High Line park, made $7,000.00 in readily
381 http://gaycitynews.com/gcn_426/millerwins.html
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identifiable contributions to Christines campaign account. Steven Rubenstein, the publicist who works for his master PR spin doctor father, Howard Rubenstein, gave $2,000.00. The publicist, campaign consultant, and lobbyist George Arzt gave $750.00 ; the lobbyist James Capalino gave $1,500.00 ; Richard Davis, the former member of the Watergate Special Prosecutor Force, gave $1,000.00 ; and Brad Hoylman, an attorney for the Partnership for New York City, donated $250.00. Mr. Arzt is a prolific campaign contributor : over the course of many election cycles, Mr. Arzt has donated over $90,000.00 to New York City municipal candidates in an attempt to buy access for himself and his political and public relations clients.382 Various other lobbyists, real estate developers, big business insiders, and hospital executives donated large sums of money to Christine in the time leading up to her campaign for the speakership. At the same time, a political action committee known as Affordable Housing PAC Ltd. made a contribution of $500.00, and Charles King, the chief executive officer of the AIDS services organization Housing Works, donated $250.00 to Christines account.383 How did it come to be that real estate contributions would take such a central role in Christines fundraising, especially in 2004 and 2005, in the run up to her selection of City Council speaker to replace Gifford Miller ? She was only the chair of the Health Committee, yet she was receiving outsized contributions from real estate interests and lobbyists. One root of the influence of real estate money can be traced back to 2002, when Mr. Miller was selected to be speaker. Part of his brokered deal
382 http://ny-popculture-politics.blogspot.com/2013/08/George-Arzt-The-90500-Campaign-Finance-Board-
Political-Donations-Man.html 383 http://www.nyccfb.info/searchabledb/SimpleSearchResult.aspx?election_cycle=2005&cand_id=204&cand_nam e=Quinn%2c+Christine+C
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with the Queens party boss, Tom Manton, called for the appointment of Melinda Katz to be the chair of the City Council Land Use Committee.384 Through this appointment, Mr. Manton pushed forward a councilmember that could be counted on to support zone-busting real estate deals. The term limits amendment passed by Speaker Miller kept him in City Council until the end of 2005, at which point he ran for mayor in that election, as was widely expected. He ended up losing in the Democratic primary for, among other reasons, having been exposed for using City Council resources to further his political campaign.385 But long before Speaker Millers loss, real estate donors were trying to fund the next wave of leaders, who would be predisposed to supporting their development projects. To that end, voters saw that Ms. Katz had raised over $700,000.00 in her campaign account, much of it from real estate interests and lobbyists, with many names identical to Christines own campaign contributors.386 When the former deputy mayor under Mayor Bloomberg once bragged about Mayor Bloombergs record of 78-0 in getting zone- busting projects pushed through the City Council, it wasnt a measure of Mayor Bloombergs success but rather a reflection of how much developers had individually compromised key members in the City Council through campaign donations. As was observed with Mr. Millers speakership selection, political insiders traded favors to determine which councilmember would be chosen to be the City
384 http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/16/nyregion/council-speaker-plans-to-cut-stipends-for-himself-and-
others.html 385 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/14/nyregion/metrocampaigns/14miller.html 386 http://www.nyccfb.info/searchabledb/SimpleSearchResult.aspx?election_cycle=2005&cand_id=264&cand_nam e=Katz%2c+Melinda
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Council speaker. These backroom deals got made at the county boss level, and, since 1986, it appeared that the Queens and Bronx county bosses had been the most disciplined about acting in concert to select the speaker in exchange for choice political appointments to the most powerful City Council committees. Because of lockstep actions by Queens and Bronx county bosses, the largest borough in New York City, Brooklyn, has essentially been locked out of having any say in the City Council speakerships race since 1986, the year Speaker Vallone took over the leadership post from Brooklyn councilmember Thomas Cuite, who had, in turn, held the leadership post for almost two decades.387 But Christine broke the stranglehold by Queens and County bosses by turning to Brooklyn political boss Vito Lopez for help to secure her speakership. 388 These backroom deals raised serious issues about the healthy function of representative democracy in the City Council. Political bosses were deciding the speakership, not voters actual representatives, namely, the councilmembers themselves. The unmistakable spike in real estate donations to Christines political campaign as early as the 2005 election cycle meant that real estate interests and lobbyists were intending to compromise Christines independence on real estate issues. The sizeable donations from Gary Barnett, Douglas Durst, George Arzt, James Capalino, and some of the donations from the Meilman family dated back to 2004, an early sign that the fix may have already been in on the speakership from a year prior to the 2005 election. Its not uncommon for real estate interests to begin
387 http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/25/nyregion/jostling-for-position-starts-early-in-race-for-council-
speaker.html 388 http://nymag.com/news/politics/17207/index4.html
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making heavy campaign donations over a year in advance to their approved political candidates.389 The sizeable donations to Ms. Katzs campaign account also reflected her own contention for the speakership.390 Christines campaign for the speakership began early, as measured by the flood of real estate donations, and, Christine followed Speaker Millers pattern of reaching out to the county bosses for their support. This county boss strategy was confirmed by Brooklyn councilmember Bill de Blasio, as told to New York magazine. She understood, better than I did, that a lot of this ball game revolved around the county Democratic leaders, he said, adding, She did a better job in developing those relationships, presenting a personality they were comfortable with, finding out how not to be threatening to them.391 In 2002, the Queens County Democratic boss, Tom Manton, had negotiated from Speaker Miller the City Council Land Use committee chair appointment for one of his delegations members, Melinda Katz,392 in whom the real estate industry had already invested multiple and sizeable campaign donations. In the run up to the 2005 campaign season, Mr. Manton was interested in maintaining the status quo for his own power base, as well as for real estate interests, who did not want to take a loss on the money that they had spent to finance Ms. Katzs appointment to the Land Use committee. Upon Christines assumption of the speakership, Ms. Katz kept her leadership post on Land Use, and David Weprin, another member of the Queens City Council delegation, kept his appointment as chair of the powerful Finance
389 http://queenscrap.blogspot.com/2008/01/katz-kash-kow.html 390 http://www.nynewsnetwork.com/2006/01/12/council-powers-chris-quinns/ 391 http://nymag.com/news/politics/17207/index4.html 392 http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/17/nyregion/queens-democrats-pick-some-council-plums.html
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committee.393 He, too, was well-financed by real estate interests and lobbyists.394 The permanent establishment that spends so heavily on reelecting approved incumbents does not like insurgents of any kind. By appearing to have made promises to keep Mr. Mantons big business- approved delegates in their positions of power, Christine was able to take the lead in the negotiations for the next speakership. Although Christine swore to New York magazine that she did not make backroom deals with the county political bosses, Mr. Manton was coy about it. With politics -- its a little harsh to say -- to the victors belong the spoils, he told New York magazine.395 Bill Dobbs, the notable LGBT activist, told a Gay City News reporter that Christines victory was a reflection of politics as usual for party bosses and backroom wheeler dealers.396 To more astute observers, like Mr. Dobbs, there was an inauthentic portrayal amongst Christines supporters that the body of newly incoming councilmembers had championed the vote for the first woman and first openly LGBT speaker of the City Council. Like a true insider, Christine, like Speaker Miller before her, began tolling for a need to extend term limits before 2005 would come to a close.397 Big business interests and lobbyists were investing more and more money in incumbents in leadership positions, and the sources of these large campaign contributions wanted to avert the need to continue these large payments with the more rapid succession caused by term limits. In a report in The New York Times, Christines selection was
393 http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/16/nyregion/council-speaker-plans-to-cut-stipends-for-himself-and-
others.html 394 http://www.nyccfb.info/searchabledb/SimpleSearchResult.aspx?election_cycle=2005&cand_id=232&cand_nam e=Weprin%2c+David+I 395 http://nymag.com/news/politics/17207/index4.html 396 http://gaycitynews.com/gcn_453/christinequinn.html 397 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C00E1D91631F937A15752C1A9639C8B63
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indicated as a fait accompli once she had garnered the support of the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn county leaders.398 The real narrative of Christines selection had more to do with Mr. Manton being the power broker, who helped to negotiate the terms of Christines speakership,399 rather than Christine having been found to be an inspirational choice by the councilmembers. Tom Robbins, a very wise political reporter, noted in The Village Voice that, in acknowledgement for their role in bestowing upon Christine the speakership, Christine arranged for the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn county bosses to sit right up front during the preordained City Council vote.400 Years later, when the publication City & State was reviewing a scandalous episode during Christines speakership, an anonymous City Council source finally admitted that Christine wasnt the actual choice of the Council for the speakership.401 But Christine had a myth to propagate, and, to her and to her supporters, it was important to further the fairy tale narrative that councilmembers had elected the first woman and openly LGBT speaker based on Christines record of achievement -- and not on her backroom deals with the political machine. For Christine to make these giant leaps in power after less than six years in the City Council, she had to cut deals. The winners werent going to be the voters, who were still naively waiting for Christine to be a source of top-down support for bottom-up community empowerment. Instead, the winners were going to be the power brokers, the insiders, the lobbyists, and the political operatives on whose backs Christine climbed to further her own position in government. For example, in
398 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/04/nyregion/04quinn.html 399 http://www.timesnewsweekly.com/sites/www.timesnewsweekly.com/files/archives/Archives2006/Oct.-
Dec.2006/120706/NewFiles/MANTON.html 400 http://www.villagevoice.com/2006-01-03/news/the-outsider-comes-in/ 401 http://www.cityandstateny.com/slush-fund-legacy-future-member-items/
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the weeks leading to the formal announcement that Christine had clinched the speakership, Christine co-hosted a fundraiser for Rep. Joe Crowley, a weak supporter of reproductive freedom for women. Rep. Crowley had succeeded Mr. Manton in Congress, and Mr. Manton expected his subjects, which now included Christine, to express loyalty to the members of his political machine. Even though Christine kept brandishing her myth as an advocate for, among other things, abortion rights, Mr. Dobbs told The Village Voice that Christine was motivated to help Rep. Crowley solely to win Mantons support and the Queens delegation. It was no coincidence that the higher up the totem pole that Christine climbed, the more glaring the betrayals to her own political ethics became. The rationalizations of Christines supporters became all the more bold, as well. Michael McKee, the controversial tenants rights activist, who was called on to provide more and more political cover to Christine, expressed his support to Christine for her contradictory support of Rep. Crowley. Does it bother me ? No, he told The Village Voice. 402 Mr. Robbins, the wise political reporter, observed that on the day of the nominal councilmember vote on the speakership, a swarm of lobbyists swooped down on Christine. One of the lobbyists was Joe Strasburg, a former chief of staff of former Speaker Vallone. Mr. Strasburg had become the leader of the citys biggest landlord lobby, the Rent Stabilization Association, which advocated an end to rent control and regulation. According to Mr. Robbins, Mr. Strasburg was there to influence Christines pick for the chair of the City Council Housing & Buildings

402 http://www.villagevoice.com/2006-01-03/news/the-outsider-comes-in/
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committee.403 Councilmember Erik Dilan, a close associate of the Brooklyn political boss Mr. Lopez, was the early favorite to head Housing & Buildings,404 and eventually he was picked.405 Even The New York Times made the connection that Mr. Lopez was interested in installing a Brooklyn councilmember in the housing committee to help Mr. Lopez consolidate control over housing issues. In his position in the state assembly, Mr. Lopez was chair of the Assembly Housing Committee,406 and through Councilmember Dilan, Mr. Lopez would have lucrative influence over governmental housing policy. To developers, Mr. Lopez would become the new gatekeeper of real estate issues. Given how developers influenced policy and leadership appointments with political contributions, Christine helped make Mr. Lopez the new power broker for the real estate industry. To careful observers, there would be no more pretense about how much Christine had shifted, in terms of her commitment to affordable housing and tenants rights. She had by this time stopped helping Mitchell-Lama residents and instead focused on advancing the careers of politicians, who were predisposed to supporting real estate industry interests. And as the first wave of the Berger Commission hospital closings loomed on the horizon, Christine picked Councilmember Joel Rivera to replace her as chair of the Health Committee. 407 The sole political consideration for his selection was seen to be as a reward to the Bronx political boss, Jose Rivera, for having supported Christines speakership. Christine was doing all the right things by big business interests and political bosses.
403 http://www.villagevoice.com/2006-01-03/news/the-outsider-comes-in/ 404 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/18/nyregion/18council.html 405 http://nymag.com/news/politics/17207/index4.html 406 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/18/nyregion/18council.html 407 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/18/nyregion/18council.html
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Trying to ring the loud alarum bell was Mr. Dobbs, who had by then established for himself a semi-public role as an incorruptible good government watchdog with sensibilities about each of LGBT rights, civil liberties, and civil rights. Mr. Dobbs tried to debunk the identity politics that Christine was using to further her career in politics. He foresaw trappings in Christines myth that had been observed in recent past political figures. Let's not confuse a seat at the table or a fancy title with progress, Mr. Dobbs told the reporter Mr. Robbins for a report in The Village Voice. Think Clarence Thomas, or Madeleine Albright, Mr. Dobbs said, naming two remarkable examples of neoliberal traitors to progressive values, adding, There is a lot more to change than diversifying representatives.408 But the allure of Christines myth was too strong for some. At an event celebrating Christines installation as City Council speaker, Christine received wide-spread praise. Shes broken the glass ceiling, Dirk McCall, president of Stonewall Democrats, told Gay City News, noting, It says we can elect people citywide who can be out. Mr. McCall once worked for the lobbyist James Capalino, and Mr. McCall was one of Christines early critical supporters. He added that the gay agenda was far from being fulfilled in New York, citing the need for more government attention to LGBT homeless youth, seniors, and people with HIV/AIDS, all of whom were constituency groups which Quinn had expertise, Mr. McCall said.409 Time and again, Christines raison d'tre was always brought back to her roots as an advocate for LGBT issues, in spite of the fact that after six years in the City Council Christine had

408 http://www.villagevoice.com/2006-01-03/news/the-outsider-comes-in/2/ 409 http://gaycitynews.com/gcn_453/christinequinn.html
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never proposed any policy to fully address the issue of LGBT homeless youth, for example. Notwithstanding the power of Christines myth on her followers, Christine admitted right out to The New York Times that one of the first items on her legislative agenda as speaker would be to take up the issue of term limits. (This was presumably because the discussion to change term limits before the end of 2005 failed to lead to an extension.) The New York Times reported that Christine wanted to revisit the issue of term limits for council members, which she opposes and the mayor supports.410 Within weeks, Christine fired 61 council staff members411 in violation of the very early Quinn doctrine to preserve the expertise of the Council staff.412 The Bloomberg official, who was in charge of the commission tasked with protecting the civil service system, was Stanley Schlein. He was a lobbyist and close political operative of Jose Rivera,413 the Bronx political boss with whom Christine negotiated support for her speakership and the father of the newly incoming Health Committee chair. Mr. Schlein did not interfere with Christines politically-motivated purging of City Council staff. Among Christines new appointments was a Bloomberg administration official, Michael Keogh, who would now be in change of negotiating the city budget on behalf of the City Council with his former bosses in City Hall. Christines subjugation of budget control began here, at the inception.414 Whereas, two years before her ascension into the speakership, Christine had been critical of the Bloomberg administrations ambitious plans to make advances in public health
410 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/04/nyregion/04quinn.html 411 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/18/nyregion/18council.html 412 http://old.gothamgazette.com/commentary/quinn.shtml 413 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/26/nyregion/metrocampaigns/26schlein.html 414 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/18/nyregion/18council.html
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in the face of constant budget cuts, now Christine was turning over the reins of the budget process over to the very same Bloomberg administration that continued to proposed budget cuts to healthcare that Christine would take to the media to nominally protest. For Christine to be rewarding the Bloomberg administration with a prominent political appointment within the City Council budget office, one would wonder if Mayor Bloomberg had been similarly approached to support Christines speakership. Was Mr. Keogh appointment promised to Mayor Bloomberg the way Councilmember Dilans appointment to the Housing & Buildings Committee was promised to Mr. Lopez ? Years later, The New York Daily News reported that leading up to Christines successful speakership campaign, she forged alliances with Mayor Bloomberg, among others, as part of her insider strategy to win the speakership.415 Expectations from Christines constituents for progressive reforms would clash with the agenda of powers that be, who had promoted Christine into ever higher positions of leadership. No more would Christine serve as a beacon of top-down support for bottom-up community empowerment. At each step of the way, insiders thwarted decisions that should have been made in the best interests of voters. The remainder of Christines story would be just as corrupt as was her upward climb to power.

415 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/election/colliding-ambitions-fuel-quinn-de-blasio-rivalry-article-
1.1436080
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Chapter 9
The myth Christine propagated was that she ran for public office to make a difference for people, that the voters could count on her to do the right thing. However, as she reached higher positions of leadership, her incumbency became more about accumulating power than championing causes on behalf of her constituents. The months immediately following her speakership selection were heady times for Christine. She oversaw the massive city budget, which she negotiated with the mayor, and she leveraged that process for even greater sources of power. After a few months as speaker, Christine was also deciding how to distribute annual disbursements of tax dollars to community groups, over which Christine had sole discretion.416 This discretionary funding gave Christine power over community groups. When community groups wanted money, they applied to their respective councilmembers, who then had to go to Christine for approval ; else, community groups would apply directly to Christine for financial assistance. Either way, all of the citys discretionary funding made available to community groups needed Christines permission. Just like political party bosses knew to negotiate tit- for-tat when deliberating the selection of City Council speaker, Christine knew that being in a position of power provided opportunities to exploit requests for support for reciprocity. As it will be shown, it appeared that there was a give and take between community groups and Christine. There was no more mistaking that Christine knew exactly how to make things happen, because she was in the sole
416 http://nymag.com/news/politics/46821/
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position to determine the fate of municipal and non-municipal programs through her power of the purse. Over the public, she had power and authority over municipal employees, government policy, and legislative functions. She used that power to water down the public housing requirements in the Hudson Yards project and to dole out member items, as the annual discretionary community group disbursements were sometimes referred. In private, she had power and authority over political operatives, lobbyists, and party bosses, and she used that power to benefit herself by becoming the City Council speaker. To make this latest climb into power, Christine had waged what The Village Voice revealed to be a delicate, behind-the- scenes campaign of three years duration.417 This meant that only after a short period of having become chair of the City Council Health committee, Christine was already focusing on her next move up in the ranks of power. How it came to be that she could patiently plot and negotiate with county party bosses to force councilmembers to elect her speaker proved that she knew how to strike backroom deals to get what she wanted. However, Christine would never grease those gears for the greater interest of the public. When voters demanded government action on issues, like a way to put a stop to Stephen Bergers closure of New York City hospitals, Christine would pretend that she was powerless, she would divert the medias attention, or she would be missing in action. At each step of the way, she would also turn to enablers from big business and special interests to give her political cover.
417 http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2007/11/_politicians_on.php
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The hospital closings called for by the Berger Commission were formulated at a time when only some hospital patients were covered by job-based health insurance, and hospitals were forced to write down the economic costs from treating underinsured and uninsured patients. The Berger Commission, headed by a Wall Street banker, was only capable of seeing the provision of full-service hospital care from perspective of profits, losses, and debts, instead of from the perspective of providing people with the human right to healthcare. We have a history in this state of pumping money into the system and not letting hospitals close even if they should, Mr. Berger had told The New York Times in 2004, adding, You have to right- size the system, you have to shrink it, that is No. 1.418 In typical Wall Street fashion of divorcing any moral dilemma from situational ethics, hospital closings were pushed as inevitable,419 and patients were expected to have to deal with it. This was about a decade before "Obamacare" would extend healthcare coverage to millions of uninsured Americans. Back then, Mr. Berger observed overcapacity among hospitals, which, in his money-warped worldview, had to be cut. However, in the future, Mr. Bergers draconian cuts would prove to gut healthcare infrastructure leading up to the time when Obamacare would lead to a large influx of newly covered patients into the healthcare system. But even without knowing that healthcare coverage would be expanded within the next decade, back then state health officials knew about the dangers of past outbreaks, pandemics, and unforeseen uses of bioterrorism agents, such as anthrax. There were reasons why it was penny wise and dollar foolish to make drastic cuts to full-service hospital
418 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/nyregion/19hospital.html 419 http://www.gothamgazette.com/index.php/health/3004-hospitals-in-crisis
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capacity in New York City, and Christine was gambling that nothing would happen to pose a serious public health risk on her watch. Moreover, for patients, who relied on hospital care for their only access to healthcare, the hospital closings were not timed with the immediate replacement of comparable access to healthcare. City health officials never mentioned how life-saving healthcare services would be provided in cases of medical or trauma emergency. Management at unions as some hospitals saw that resistance to the Berger Commission Report was futile, and they accepted hospital closures as a fait accompli, while management and unions at other hospitals fought back against the closings. The first hospital to close was St. Vincents Midtown Hospital, located in Hells Kitchen in Manhattan. It was formerly known as St. Clares Hospital, which had been the setting in the 1980s for segregating HIV/AIDS patients in an isolated facility. It closed its doors in August 2007 without a fight.420 The second New York City hospital to close was Victory Memorial Hospital in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. It announced in November 2006 its intention to file for bankruptcy in anticipation of being targeted for closure by the Berger Commission Report,421 even before the recommendations would take effect, and it closed its doors for good in June 2008.422 Two other hospitals closed in 2008. They were Cabrini Medical Center in Manhattan and Parkway Hospital in Queens. Cabrini closed its doors in March 2008, only a few days after Gov. Spitzer was forced to resign, and its official reason for closing was that it was unable to make payroll, state health officials said.423 Officials with
420 http://www.gnyha.org/4263/Default.aspx 421 http://www.nysun.com/new-york/hospitals-bankruptcy-filing-precedes-report/43695/ 422 http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/31/26/31_26_victory_wins.html 423 http://www.nysun.com/new-york/cabrini-medical-center-closes-its-doors/73128/
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Cabrini would not comment about its closure, so the public was never informed about how Cabrinis finances had conveniently been allowed to run dry to expedite the Berger Commission closing. In order to guarantee continuity of care, supervision of Cabrinis hospice patients were transferred to nearby St. Vincents Hospital in Greenwich Village,424 which was viewed by many as a more important underpinning of public health, especially after the closings of other nearby Manhattan hospitals. In contrast, management at Parkway Hospital, located in Queens, fought against the unilateral decision to be closed by the Berger Commission. However, its efforts to stay open failed after the state Department of Health, which had the upper hand, allowed Parkways operating certificate to expire.425 Parkway officials were forced to comply with the expectation that the hospital would be closed, and to drive the final nail in the hospitals coffin, state health officials had contacted all ambulance companies to tell them that Parkways operating certificate was invalid.426 Without new patients, the hospital had no choice but to be closed. After St. Vincents Midtown closed, but before Victory Memorial finally closed its doors, Christine found herself at the political crossroads of her career. Councilembers were pressuring her to overturn term limits, in the never-ending quest by incumbents for more power made possible, in this case, by extending their term in office.427 Unless something was done to overturn term limits, the next citywide election cycle was going to lead to the expulsion of 36 councilmembers, including Christine. Since term limits were going to force Christine out of the City
424 http://www.nysun.com/new-york/cabrini-medical-center-closes-its-doors/73128/ 425 http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20081105/FREE/811059975 426 http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20081105/FREE/811059975 427 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/won-push-extend-term-limits-christine-quinn-vows-article-
1.271344
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Council, it was widely reported that her focus was now shifting to mount a run for the mayors office in 2009.428 429 Because she had set her sights on higher office, Christine didnt think she had to acquiesce to pressure to extend term limits to her peers, who had rested their hopes on maintaining their incumbencies in the City Council. Her 2007 decision not to extend term limits represented a flip-flop from her 2005 position, when, in the latter instance, The New York Times reported that she favored extending term limits legislatively.430 Christine made it known in 2005 that she supported overturning of term limits as an inducement to win support for her campaign for the speakership. Now that Christine was preparing to run for higher office, she was ready to scuttle that promise. She had gotten the speakership she wanted, and she was ready to move on, jilting her peers. Christine was now taking too many people for granted. She was accumulating so much ill will from other councilmembers, who felt betrayed by Christines flip flop. How long could Christine string along her peers and constituents for her sole benefit ? In early 2008, the media portrayed Christines annual community group disbursements as appearing as if they had been administered like a political slush fund of taxpayer money. Christines office had been setting aside millions of dollars each year for fake charity groups, and Christine would allegedly then later dole out the disbursements as rewards to her political supporters. In the 2007 and 2008 fiscal year budgets, the nominal size of this slush fund totaled almost $5 million, according to a devastating examination of Christines use of discretionary funding,
428 http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2007/11/_politicians_on.php 429 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/19/nyregion/19quinn.html 430 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C00E1D91631F937A15752C1A9639C8B63
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published by The New York Post.431 Much later, it was revealed in a separate investigation that between the 2009 and 2012 fiscal year budgets, Christine had at her disposal $1.8 billion in discretionary capital improvement funding.432 In still yet another investigation into the close ties between Christine and her close friend, the lobbyist Emily Giske, The New York Times noted that Christine had been providing discretionary capital funding from the city governments budget to four clients of Ms. Giskes. One of those clients was Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center, a hospital in Brooklyn, which had received capital funding in two consecutive budgets.433 Still yet another report by Crains noted that the High Line park had retained Ms. Giske to lobby Christine against the Hudson Yards project taking the remaining parts of the unused elevated railroad track wanted by park supporters.434 Some of the City Council discretionary funds received by the park project were being used to pay Christines close lobbyist friend, who would then turn around and lobby Christine. Had the High Line begun to function much like a quasi-pass through entity for Ms. Giske to get paid by city tax dollars ? The allocation of discretionary funds to fictitious charities by the City Council had led to an investigation of Christines supervision of the funds,435 and now the media was scrutinizing the charities that had previously received these funds. The 2008 investigation by The New York Daily News noted that the City Council discretionary funding to the High Line park project originally began under Speaker
431 http://nypost.com/2008/04/03/this-is-hers-for-the-faking/ 432
http://www.citizensunion.org/www/cu/site/hosting/Reports/CU_Report_NYC_Discretionary_FundingFY2009- 2012_May2012.pdf 433 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/nyregion/for-speaker-quinn-mayor-race-will-test-alliance-with- lobbyist.html 434 http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20080113/SUB/673614991 435 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/04/nyregion/04quinn.html
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Miller, and that the park project had hired the lobbying firm of Robert Hammond, Speaker Millers close friend, and that while the park project was receiving City Council discretionary funds, the park project was also paying Mr. Hammonds lobbying firm.436 Near or during this time, Mario Palumbo, an employee of the real estate development company Millennium Partners, and James Capalino, head of his own lobbying firm, were board treasurer and board member, respectively, of the park project, and they also made campaign contributors to Christine, according to the 2008 investigation. A later investigation by The Village Voice showed that Mr. Palumbo had become a major campaign bundler for Christine, soliciting and pooling over $50,000.00 in political donations from individuals linked to real estate.437 Adding to the suspicion surrounding Christines slush fund was the fact that Michael Keogh, who had been a former Bloomberg administration official whom Christine appointed to be in change of negotiating the city budget on behalf of the City Council with his former bosses in City Hall, resigned as a result of the slush fund scandal. He landed a cushion job almost immediately with Ms. Giskes lobbying firm, where everybody could keep their eyes on him.438 While state officials were saying that there was no money to save hospitals from closing, it appeared that Christine was using her discretionary funds to reward her political supporters. Even though she had billions of dollars at her disposal, Christine failed to act to allocate those resources to bail out strategic community resources, and she delayed addressing the issue of hospital closings altogether until
436 http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/christine-quinn-cash-west-side-project-campaign-money-article-
1.278117 437 http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2013/06/christine_quinn_16.php 438 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/04/nyregion/04quinn.html
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weeks before439 the Berger Commission Reports recommendations went into effect.440 Moreover, Christine became speaker after negotiating what appeared to be awarding political patronage to her political supporters, and now an appearance of the same pattern emerged in how Christine administered city budget negotiations. In an investigation published by The New York Daily News, it was revealed that the High Line park project had received $290,000.00 in taxpayer money in the 2005 and 2006 fiscal years. Around the time when Ms. Giske was hired in 2008, the project received another $290,000.00. Meanwhile, officials connected with the park project had donated over $50,000.00 in campaign contributions to Christines political accounts, the investigation showed.441 Here, it appeared the semblance of a tit-for-tat : the park project received discretionary community group funding from the City Council, and Christine received campaign donations. Christine was allocating millions of dollars to fictitious charities and to groups that appeared to be making tributes to Christines political campaign accounts. While hospitals all across the city were under attack by the Berger Commission and even though Christine had political sensibilities about healthcare given to her by virtue of having been chair of the City Council Health committee for four years, once she became speaker, it appeared that she chose to give real estate interests, especially those which made contributions to her campaign accounts, a higher priority than saving the citys community hospitals. The duty owed to voters by Christine, now that she was in a leadership position, looked like it did not matter
439 http://www.qgazette.com/news/2006-12-20/features/002.html 440 http://www.gnyha.org/3578/Default.aspx 441 http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/christine-quinn-cash-west-side-project-campaign-money-article-
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to her. Not until Victory Memorial announced its intention to file for bankruptcy did the City Council under Christines speakership release a report of its own recommendations in response to the Berger Commission Report. Instead of fighting the hospital closings, the City Council report offered political cover that would enable the hospital closings to proceed. According to the Gotham Gazette, the City Council report made 25 specific recommendations, including requiring a regular review of hospital reimbursement rates, far better HMO regulation, strong support for developing a primary care infrastructure the development of a plan for universal health insurance and significantly greater investment in healthcare information technology.442 An article in The New York Sun reported that some of the City Council report recommendations included expanding government programs such as Medicare, requiring insurance companies to give back a portion of their profits to the communities they serve, and changing the 1996 law that deregulated how much hospitals are reimbursed by insurance companies.443 Of course deregulation would play a role in the financial vice grips between which hospitals would find themselves. Deregulation of reimbursement rates by the for-profit health insurance companies helped their profits, but it decreased the financing available for hospitals. If Christines role in the citys legislative body meant anything, she should have used it to find ways to regulate healthcare from a stand point of preserving critical infrastructure and services. Instead, Christine did nothing, taking the easy way out. Upon the issuance of the City Council hospital closings report, Christine

442 http://www.qgazette.com/news/2006-12-20/features/002.html 443 http://www.nysun.com/new-york/hospitals-bankruptcy-filing-precedes-report/43695/
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promised perseverance. And if we dont win round one, well keep coming back,444 she said. However, Christine never came back. As was typical of Christines situational ethics, once the media blitz surrounding the City Council report was over, the 25 recommendations were left to languish. The social agenda of the City Council returned to business as usual, meaning that Christine wasnt about to invest political capital into actually carrying out the reports recommendations. It was notable that the City Councils report called for universal health insurance, but given Christines lack of commitment to following-through on any intentions, a recommendation in support of universal healthcare, no matter how progressive it really was, would never be seriously pursued, much less obtained. During Christines first year as speaker, Mayor Bloomberg expressed fears that Medicaid expenses would drain the citys budget445 just months before the City Council task force report on hospital closings would advocate for universal healthcare as a solution to saving and funding healthcare.446 Public opinion polls were taken around this time, which showed broad support for a universal healthcare system,447 but Christine would not seize on the broader public support. Why would Christine fail to pursue a universal healthcare system in the face of the impending wave of hospital closings, especially if a single-payer system would save money by reducing the costs of administration, marketing, and profits ?448 These savings could have been used to expand healthcare coverage to all, preserve healthcare infrastructure, and address Mayor Bloombergs complaints about the uncontrollable increasing
444 http://loho10002.blogspot.com/2006/11/quinn-promises-healthcare-for-all-at.html 445 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/05/nyregion/05budget.html 446 http://loho10002.blogspot.com/2006/11/quinn-promises-healthcare-for-all-at.html 447 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/01/washington/01cnd-poll.html 448 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/magazine/01Healthcare.t.html
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rate of healthcare costs ? Besides on LGBT equality issues, there was no other public police area where Christine should have been a thought leader like in healthcare. However, Christine never advocated for transformational changes. She only paid lip service to healthcare issues. It was as if Christine had spent the four years as chair of the City Council health committee engrossed in ambitions other than preserving or expanding healthcare. She had failed to grasp the big picture. All of the hospital closings that took place in New York City as a result of the Berger Commission Report took place during Christines speakership. If it was true that Christine had no idea how to stop the collapse of public health, then it was also true that she never asked for help from other government leaders. The hospital closings would take place across several governorships in Albany. It was Gov. Pataki, who first ordered Mr. Berger to launch into his hospital closings campaign. In 2006, Eliot Spitzer, the former attorney general, who had once saved MEETH from closure, was elected to be the next governor. He would only serve a partial term in office, for slightly over one year, before an affair that he had with a prostitute brought down his administration.449 With the resignation of Gov. Spitzer, healthcare activists lost a known hospital care advocate, and oversight of the Berger Commission hospital closings would transfer to Gov. Spitzers successor, David Patterson. Gov. Patterson would serve out the balance of former Gov. Spitzers term, and Gov. Patterson would not run for reelection. In his place, Andrew Cuomo, who was responsible for the construction of an AIDS-only segregated care center up in the Bronx, was elected to office. Gov.
449 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/12/nyregion/12cnd-resign.html
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Cuomo, who like his father before him, had ambitions for higher office, and he would be described to be interested in making drastic cuts to the state budget in order to window dress Albanys finances to fluff his credentials in preparation for a run for the presidency, some healthcare activists said. Christine never stood up to any of these governors. In the absence of municipal leadership and against this tumultuous backdrop in the states capital, Mr. Berger found no resistance to his campaign to close hospitals from the various governors, to each of whom reported the states highest healthcare official, the commissioner of the states Department of Health. Christine had been able to master by this time movement between two worlds : the manufactured myth that she was a progressive advocate450 and the image of a political boss capable of striking backroom political deals.451 Christine was escaping the first wave of hospital closings by the Berger Commission without anybody holding her accountable for her laissez-faire response. At the same time, Christine was receiving greater campaign donations from special interests. Furthermore, Christine was in a position in City Council to determine the disbursement of taxpayer money to community groups, a situation that gave Christine a sense of power over community groups, which now needed to turn to Christine for funding. This gave Christine an unparalleled amount of influence over the citys non-profit agenda. It also helped her to politicize the citys non-profit agenda, to the detriment of the citys non-profit organizations. Because Christine was a dealmaker, if non-profit organizations expected funding, they would have to negotiate with Christine for that funding. Furthermore, Christine had also grasped
450 http://gaycitynews.com/gcn_453/christinequinn.html 451 http://nymag.com/news/politics/17207/
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how she could never be held accountable for irresponsible real estate development, because she never took a public position on them, like in respect of the Atlantic Yards project.452 She kept hoping that nobody would find the ball if she kept shifting her shells. But for how long could Christine keep this shell game going ? Above all, she was trying to stay in Mayor Bloombergs good graces. She was hoping that if she could manage her speakership from a position of enabling the mayors political agenda, she would be able to earn praise and backing from the mayors powerful big business supporters. It wasnt just Christine, who was benefiting from her powerful association with Mayor Bloomberg ; theirs was a symbiotic relationship. They spent so much time working together, that they even made efforts to get to know each other, personally. It was reported that Mayor Bloomberg flew Christine at least once aboard his private jet to his week-end house in the Caribbean.453 To them, incumbency wasnt about serving the voters, but about using that perch for their own personal pleasure -- and to further their own ambitions. While Christine was plotting a mayoral campaign, Mayor Bloomberg flirted with the idea of using his mayoralty as a launching pad to run for president. To that end, Mayor Bloomberg orchestrated backroom exploratory meetings, and he even traveled to China for a presidential-looking photo op with a university president.454 One consequence of Christines failure to translate her sensibilities about activism into transformational government policy was that she had been leading to
452 http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2007/11/_politicians_on.php 453 http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/08/bloomberg-still-lets-ray-kelly-use-his-jet.html 454 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/us/politics/31bloomberg.html
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the demobilization of activists. Christine had basically seized the power and authority of advocates, who would normally put pressure on government for reforms, and she acted as if she would not need to be pressured into delivering results, because she already had those sensibilities. Even if had been true that Christine once had activism sensibilities, at one time, long ago, this kind of twisted reasoning was what enabled Michael McKee, the controversial tenants rights activists, to sign off on a package of low-cost loans to Mitchell-Lama landlords -- and still spin it as a win for affordable housing tenants. This was how a task force of the City Council could produce a report recommending universal healthcare but still do nothing to put a stop to hospital closures. With few exceptions, nobody dared to criticize Christine for failing to keep her word. She wielded too much power over the citys municipal and non-profit agenda for anybody to make an enemy of Christine. So long as Christine could find or create an outside force that was willing to provide her with political cover, then she would be relieved of community pressure to bring about reforms. The key to Christines laissez-faire approach was that she needed to receive outside political support for doing nothing at the same time when Christine needed to demobilize the community. In one instance, Christine found support from political operatives, who doubled as political directors at one healthcare union. This would allow the 25 recommendations in the City Councils task force report on hospital closings, for example, to yield to inertia. One healthcare union, 1199/S.E.I.U., had to scramble to deal with the fallout over job losses from the impending hospital closings. Jennifer Cunningham, who at that time worked as a spokesperson and political operative for 1199 and would
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later go on to work for Christine as a political campaign consultant, was more concerned at the time about employee retraining455 and not about the interruption of patient-centered care caused by hospital closings. Making job losses, no matter how painful, the central issue undermined the importance of the public health. Christine was chair of the City Council Health Committee when the Berger Commission Report was being compiled, and she was largely absent from the initial public conversation in 2004 and 2005 around Mr. Bergers recommendation for hospital closings. However, in the final months of the Fiscal Year 2005 budget, it was revealed that New York City was estimating that it would net a fiscal surplus of about $2.5 billion, even though on the state level it was said that there was no money to fully fund the healthcare needs of hospital patients.456 Near the end of the following fiscal year, the budget surplus grew to approximately $3.4 billion.457 Instead of offering to champion the use of some of these surplus government resources to fund public health in New York City, Christine kept mum. When New York United Hospital Medical Center in Port Chester, Long Island, was nearing closure, 1199 union officials were described as sounding resigned to the idea that some hospitals must close, though concerned about which ones. Ms. Cunningham told The New York Times, We may need to look at downsizing, but it's not being done in any planned way.458 Although this was before the Berger Commissions final recommendations came to be known, the writing had been on the wall since 2004, when Mr. Berger had said, You have to right-size the system,
455 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/nyregion/19hospital.html 456 http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F3071FF73B590C778CDDAA0894DD404482 457 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/05/nyregion/05budget.html 458 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/04/nyregion/04united.html
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you have to shrink it, that is No. 1.459 Mr. Berger had managed to make hospital closings all about cost containment. The focus on cutting costs began to take its toll, even though there were resources, as well as ideas, at the city level to improve public health. Besides Ms. Cunningham, who would later go on to work for Christines political campaigns, another political operative, who worked at the 1199 union, was Kevin Finnegan. He was one of Christines earliest campaign supporters. Mr. Finnegan would take the helm of 1199s political activities in the midst of a coming financial crisis. Christine had partners at a powerful healthcare union, with whom she should have teamed up to support a plan to enact the 25 recommendations from the City Councils task force report on hospital closings, but Christine never pursued solutions with 1199. In the summer of 2008, a woman went to the emergency room at Kings County Hospital Center in Brooklyn. The hospital was operated by a city agency, the Health and Hospitals Corporation, which oversaw city-owned hospitals. Employees of Kings County did not attend to the patient, and the patient collapsed and died on the floor of the waiting room.460 Her death set off a debate about the conditions at Kings County. Predictably, the NYCLU, as the citys premiere advocacy group, demanded healthcare reforms. In 2008 in New York City, nobody should be subjected to this kind of treatment. It should not take the death of a patient to get the city to make changes that everyone knows are long overdue, said Donna Lieberman, the NYCLUs executive director. However, the politicians, who knew that Mr. Bergers hospital closings would lead to emergency room overcrowding and
459 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/nyregion/19hospital.html 460 http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/01/waiting.room.death/
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overtaxed medical staff at the remaining hospitals, did not want to address concerns stemming from failures caused by city hospital ER wait times or other conditions. Although this death was not directly related to the Berger Commission, the incident at Kings County was a worse case scenario waiting to happen if the Berger Commission overreached in its efforts to close community hospitals. In the summer of 2008, Mayor Bloomberg and Christine put together the Fiscal Year 2009 budget with an estimated surplus of $4.6 billion.461 These surpluses were not coming about as a result of over-taxation. On the contrary, the City Council had refused to modify property tax rates and rebates that could have raised an additional $1.4 billion in resources from property owners, but because councilmembers were facing an election year, Christine refused the City Council the opportunity to raise taxes, even though there was economic room to do so. Even with these breaks taken away, owners of single-family homes would still pay taxes at a lower rate than their counterparts in surrounding communities, the editorial board of The New York Times wrote.462 In the middle of such excessive budget surpluses, The New York Times reported that Christine allowed Mayor Bloomberg to cut nearly $300 million from the budget that was meant to help those with the least and the most vulnerable, including people with HIV/AIDS. On this seminal issue, Christine was already turning her back on an important constituency on whose behalf she once championed. Rather than use the budget surplus or the possible opportunities to raise taxes on property owners for important municipal issues,

461 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/opinion/07mon4.html 462 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/opinion/07mon4.html
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such as improving public health, those monies were rapidly depleted as a result of an emerging Wall Street financial crisis. Before 2008 ended, two Wall Street banks, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, collapsed in the immediate aftermath of a credit squeeze caused by the overuse of complex derivatives trading. The credit squeeze triggered a global financial crisis and recession. This crisis was nominally tied to a real estate crash in the United Stated, but this domestic financial crisis quickly spread across the world through major banks because of the use of derivatives on mortgages, credit, and other financial products. The federal government swiftly cushioned the blow of the Bear Stearns collapse, and it bailed out AIG by honoring 100% of its derivative counterparty obligations. The government did not bail out Lehman Brothers, but the government did offer a backdoor bailout for other banks and derivatives dealers by flooding the financial system with easy credit and by the direct intervention of purchasing toxic assets.463 Confusion and then public anger began to grow in the face of the dichotomy between how homeowners were being foreclosed and social safety net institutions, such as hospitals, were being allowed to collapse. Yet, the government was able to seemingly find trillions of dollars of resources to deploy for a bailout of Wall Street.464 At the peak of the financial panic, Wall Street banks, hedge funds, and investment managers were exposed to be overleveraged because of their use of derivatives. Daily headlines would propagate an endless loop of fear, speculation, and desperate efforts to make back losses by attempting to profit from the short-
463 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_crisis_of_200708#Government_responses 464 http://nymag.com/news/features/68991/
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selling of stocks and bonds in the precipitous drop in asset valuations. During the work week, rumors would add to news reports about worsening balance sheets across the globe. On the week-ends, speculation in the news would spread that more and more financial institutions faced collapse if they could not be bailed out by Monday. Since New York was the financial capital of the world, the uncontrollable losses cast a pall on the tax revenues of the city government. Nominally, City Hall was proximate to the financial bloodletting on Wall Street, but City Hall had no regulatory or governmental role to do anything to stem the tide of losses. During the downward spiral at the inception of the 2008 financial crisis, Christine was engulfed in, and the possible target of, investigations by the Department of Justice over her use of fictitious accounts to hide the City Council slush fund. Christine couldnt run for mayor in the 2009 election while under active investigation by federal prosecutors.465 Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg discovered that he had no national support to launch a presidential campaign, so he needed to find an alternative to assuage his own ego.466 With the global economic system on the verge of collapse, Mayor Bloomberg and Christine used the financial crisis and recession as a convenient excuse to extend term limits, so that they could weather out another four years in public office under the privilege of incumbency.467 Because Christine was facing an investigation into her slush fund, she needed to buy some time to put that scandal behind her, before she could mount a campaign for mayor, which was now being pushed off to the 2013 election cycle. And Mayor
465 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323873904578573991495793794.html 466 http://nymag.com/news/politics/citypolitic/51820/ 467 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/02/nyregion/in-quinn-reversal-on-term-limits-complex-motives-and-
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Bloomberg wanted the benefits of being in a high profile office like the mayoralty of New York. If he couldnt run for president, then he still saw opportunities from hanging on to City Hall. The mayors financial services company would announce the launch of a new service in late 2010 called Bloomberg Government, which promised to help professionals to understand the business implications of government actions.468 Like the most cunning Wall Street speculators, these politicians also looked to profit from the turmoil. Years later, The New York Times reported that, When the mayor first spoke with Ms. Quinn about his designs on a third term, during a phone call in the fall of 2008, it was to tell her of his decision to rewrite the law, not to seek her approval beforehand, adding that, her decision was consistent with her longstanding personal opposition to term limits and her belief that in the midst of the 2008 economic crisis, voters should have the chance to keep their elected leaders in place. Christine added to this rationalization by telling The New York Times that, We were in the worst economic recession since the Great Depression and nobody had any sense of how quickly or how long we would stay in the throes of that.469 Both justifications published by The New York Times contradicted the truth about Christines opposition to term limits and the use of extenuating circumstances to extend term limits. Christine had actually opposed term limits in the time leading up to progressive Republican Councilmember Fialas moving speech denouncing the City Councils legislative efforts to overturn term limits, and, again in 2007, she
468 http://www.bloomberg.com/video/65604488-michael-riley-discusses-launch-of-bloomberg-
government.html 469 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/02/nyregion/in-quinn-reversal-on-term-limits-complex-motives-and- lasting-effects.html
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opposed extending term limits after she had induced councilmembers to select her as speaker. In the aftermath of 9/11, the public -- including then mayoral candidate Mike Bloomberg -- had opposed suspending term limits to keep Mayor Giuliani in office to oversee the recovery from the terrorist attacks. Even acts of war here on New York City soil were not enough to extend Mayor Giulianis term in office in 2001. How could a financial crisis be more severe than the deadly destruction of 9/11 ? In spite of an expected voter backlash, Christine strong-armed the City Council to pass an extension of term limits on October 23, 2008, saying, at one point, The debate today is an important one, but ultimately it is a debate about process, provoking this comment by Jonathan Tessler on a blog post on The New York Times, If it is indeed about process, its about a process that voters will have limited or no access to.470 Mr. Tesslers comments and the sentiments of others were reminiscent of former Councilmember Fialas moving speech in 2001 in which he denounced the legislative attempt at that time to overturn term limits. Why were term limits, imposed by voters through a process of voter referenda, being undermined by the process of a City Council bill coerced into passage by Christine ? Years later, The New York Times revealed that it had been alleged that Christine had used possible chairmanship assignments of City Council committees as an inducement to ensure the term limits extension.471 When it came to extending her power, Christine knew how to use force to pass legislation. But Christines image
470 http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/23/council-to-debate-term-limits-change/ 471 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/02/nyregion/in-quinn-reversal-on-term-limits-complex-motives-and-
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took a hit, because voters were finally able to clearly see how self-interested Christines legislative agenda really was. Nothing was being done to save hospitals, but the speed with which the City Council overturned term limits was striking. Mayor Bloomberg and Christine had rationalized the extension of term limits on the hypothesis that Mayor Bloomberg was a successful billionaire, who could shepherd the city through the global financial crisis and recession better than anybody else.472 But during his mayoralty, Mayor Bloomberg had never shown any financial acumen that made the resources available to save schools473 or hospitals474 from being closed on his watch. Like Christine, he was also absent from any discussion to save the citys community hospitals. If there was any financial genius to Mayor Bloombergs own myth, voters were wondering when would it materialize. Meanwhile, activists, who had known Christine since her time as former Councilmember Duanes campaign manager, remembered how Christine had instigated a staff backlash when she later took over AVP. They remembered when Christine had purged good agency staff, who had been doing first-of-a-kind work in the prevention and treatment of anti-LGBT violence. They remembered when Christine turned her back on racism and police brutality when she was on Mayor Giulianis task force. They remembered the political club backlash Christine created after she ran for City Council, and people accused her of punishing political foes with Tammany-in-lavender tactics.475 They began to tally all her betrayals on affordable housing, her role in the slush fund scandal, her abdication of
472 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/02/nyregion/in-quinn-reversal-on-term-limits-complex-motives-and-
lasting-effects.html 473 http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/stage-set-for-school-closing-showdown/ 474 http://youtu.be/ZFc1_VaCTP8 475 http://observer.com/1999/06/christine-quinn-sets-it-straight-im-a-lesbian-yup-100-percent/
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responsibility over hospital closings, the protest permit requirement, and now on term limits. Christine was going to have to decide whether she was going to continue being duplicitous with her constituents, or whether she was going to either fully sell out to big business interests, as was the growing impression. Veteran activists kept hoping that Christine would come home and renew her loyalty to her base of one-time supporters, as the activist Jim Fouratt once put it.476 Leading up to the 2009 municipal election, The New York Times was on shaky financial ground. Its newspaper business kept losing money, and its digital assets were not performing well, either. It had just moved into a new high-rise office building, and, in the beginning of that year, it was forced to take out an emergency loan from enterprises linked to the controversial Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim to help it ease a serious cash crunch.477 For many years, it was speculated that The New York Times would need to court a billionaire angel investor to finance its business on a long-term basis, and Mayor Bloomberg, with his vast wealth, was often mentioned as a possible benefactor.478 479 Activists wondered whether The New York Times would hold back on criticism of the Bloomberg-Quinn administration out of fear that it might anger the man, who might one day own the Grey Lady. For example, when the CityTime scandal broke, it appeared that The New York Daily News did a better job of driving coverage of fraud that was estimated to exceed over $600 million, and The New York Times never appeared to follow-up on a story about hidden city bank accounts that held hundreds of millions of taxpayer
476 http://youtu.be/7pxiULqxusM 477 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/business/media/20times.html 478 http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/06/will-bloomberg-buy-the-new-york-times-125175.html 479 http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/everyone-is-talking-about-the-ny-times-being-sold_b90770
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dollars,480 even after the Comptroller Bill Thompson and his successor, John Liu, took Mayor Bloomberg to task for the unregistered bank accounts.481 That The New York Times could consider taking a soft-pedal approach to Mayor Bloombergs record was indication of the political realities caused by the influence of Mayor Bloombergs wealth, even on the venerable broadsheet. Journalism was at risk of being bent by the gravitational pull of the mayors billions. Indeed, Mayor Bloomberg was widely reported to have used his private wealth to help overturn term limits.482 Accepting the idea that a vulnerable journalism outpost desperate for an affluent white knight could slant its reportage out of motivations for self- preservation would help to understand the remainder of the patchwork storyline of Christines career, especially how the rest of the hospital closings would play-out. In January 2009, the political operative Kevin Finnegan took over as political director for 1199, after the previous political director, Patrick Gaspard, was selected to work on Barack Obamas 2008 presidential campaign.483 Mr. Gaspard would transition to become the White House political director, where he would become involved in the presidents plan to expand healthcare insurance to millions of previously uninsured patients.484 Mr. Gaspard left to Mr. Finnegan and others to confront Mr. Bergers continued onslaught to close hospitals in New York. Mr. Finnegans leadership would contrast with Mr. Gaspards, because Mr. Finnegan was an early support of Christines, while Mr. Gaspards was a supporter of one of
480 http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/more-city-agencies-hold-millions-in-hidden-accounts/ 481 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/nyregion/22morgy.html 482 http://nypost.com/2013/06/23/ilence-was-golden/ 483 http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2009/01/finnegan-the-new-gaspard-at-11.html 484 http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/labor-groups-to-press-obama-on-health-care-and-a-
second-stimulus-effort/
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Christines rivals for the speakership, Bill de Blasio.485 Somehow, union leaders were expected to serve the rank and file, even though leaders could sometimes have allegiances to politicians with rival agendas. Such were the minefields of community and union organizing in New York City. At any rate, within weeks of Mr. Finnegans formal appointment, two Queens hospitals, which had once been part of the St. Vincents hospital system, closed : Mary Immaculate Hospital and St. Johns Queens Hospital.486 By this time, employees began to hold demonstrations in protest against the Berger Commissions push to close hospitals. But the very structure that was given to the political apparatus making the closures possible -- the executive appointment of Mr. Berger to a commission made years ago by Gov. Pataki, two administrations removed from Gov. Pattersons term in office -- allowed for no political accountability for the closures. The Berger Commission was executing a top-down agenda that had no bottom-up support from impacted communities. Even though state health officials bore ultimate responsibility for regulating healthcare facilities, the impact on public health caused by hospital closures could also be deemed a municipal issue, but neither Mayor Bloomberg nor Christine took city action to save these hospitals. Mr. Thompson, the New York City comptroller at the time, issued a policy report describing the effect of the closing of Mary Immaculate and St. Johns as creating an emergency room crisis in Queens,487 but Mayor Bloomberg and Christine never opposed these hospital closings. It worked in Christine's political favor to keep
485 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/bill-de-blasio-campaign-driven-seasoned-political-hands-
article-1.1456256 486 http://www.ny1.com/content/news/94742/two-queens-hospitals-finally-shut-down/ 487 http://comptroller.nyc.gov/wp-content/uploads/documents/06-01-09_Hospital-closures-Policy-Alert-Jun- 1.pdf
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ambiguity around the hospital closings crisis, so that she would not have to use any political power or authority to challenge Mr. Berger. The nebulous nature to whom hospital employees and healthcare advocates could appeal to put a stop to the closings frustrated protesters, and it prevented activists, at least in the beginning, from being able to form a resistance movement that could coalesce around specific elected officials, against whom a long-term campaign of pressure politics could be launched. Christines slush fund scandal, the row over the extension of term limits, her apparent subjugation to Mayor Bloomberg, her betrayals on affordable housing, her unpopular support for controversial garbage facilities in Tribeca and in the Upper East Side, and her failure to confront the NYPD over a covert police policy of entrapping men at gay bookstores increased voter dissatisfaction within Christines City Council district. In the 2009 election cycle, two candidates openly challenged Christine for the Democratic primary : Yetta Kurland, a civil rights attorney, and Maria Passannante Derr, a local civic leader who opposed the Tribeca garbage truck facility. In the West Village, Chelsea, and Hells Kitchen neighborhoods of Manhattan, voters were now mobilizing against Christine. Years of violating her public duty were finally catching up to her. Besides the standard complaints, new activists were coming forward with concerns over crumbling infrastructure and the concentration of power among lobbyists and special interests, energizing the old guard of activists. Also joining the growing protest movement against Christine were digital activists and bloggers. One such digital activist was Suzannah B. Troy.
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At one protest against Christine in the time leading up to the 2009 election, Ms. Troy brought the famed civil rights attorney Norman Siegel, who once served with Christine on Mayor Giulianis police task force. Mr. Siegel was to serve as a legal observer at a protest outside a primary debate at a building owned by New York University. At the debate, voters arrived to discover that last minute tickets were needed to get inside, and that the line of people with tickets were mainly Christines supporters, many of whom were said to possibly be City Council employees. That summer, The Village Voice questioned whether Christine was using City Council employees to volunteer during normal work hours, a violation of rules set by the Board of Elections.488 Meanwhile, outside the NYU debate, Mr. Siegel witnessed how the university dispatched its own private security force to keep out a large overflow crowd. Because NYU made no provision for a standing room only crowd, the excess crowd was just plain locked out. A man in a wheelchair was denied entry in clear violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Ms. Troy and other digital activists recorded on video the abuses by NYU security that denied voters entry into the debate, and those videos were posted on YouTube,489 490 491 blogged about, and shared. That Christine would agree to a venue for a debate that would lock out voters was spread across social media. In municipal politics, this debate marked an important turning point : social media activists were now able to report campaign news that would never have been so swiftly documented before, much less shared across the Internet.
489 http://youtu.be/OmWXpj20_-c 490 http://youtu.be/S7km0CGc0uE 491 http://youtu.be/adDEhhagQnY 488 http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2009/08/speaker_quinn_p.php
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Christine was late for the debate, and when she finally arrived, she had to walk in front of the angry voters, who had been locked out by NYU. As Christine approached the entrance to the NYU facility, Ms. Troy was the fist to say, Oust Quinn, oust Quinn ! Shes corrupt !492 Ms. Troys jeers signaled to the other protesters that it was O.K. to boo Christine. Other chants and denounciations followed, but, once Christine made her way inside, she was insulated from the voter anger for the time being. The man in the wheelchair and a reporter from the all news cable channel NY1 were among those, who were denied entry, which further angered the protesters outside. Mr. Siegel took issue with NYU officials for having turned away the press and locking out the protesters. Sometimes the police and private security trample on peoples First Amendment rights, Mr. Siegel said at the time, adding, This city, this country -- the cornerstone of the participatory democracy -- is for people to have the right to peacefully protest. He added, You cannot allow anyone, whether its a mayor, whether its a police department, to trample on peoples First Amendment rights ... or even the speaker. Now that activists were organizing against Christine, she was trying to find ways to disband protests, and word of Christines efforts had made its way back to Mr. Siegel. Recently, I heard that the speaker had some private security people, who were telling people that they could not demonstrate on a public sidewalk. Its absolutely false, and I will make sure that peoples First Amendment rights are protected, Mr. Siegel said outside the NYU debate.493 Eventually, after immense pressure from protesters and intervention by Mr. Siegel, the wheelchaired man was
492 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7km0CGc0uE 493 http://youtu.be/S7km0CGc0uE
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allowed entry into that nights debate.494 But it was a small win. NYU and the sponsor of the debate, The Villager newspaper, had only provided five press passes, meaning that the NY1 reporter was kept locked out of the debate, even though his cable news channel was the primary TV source for political news in New York City. The clampdown on media coverage was designed to keep a lid on voter anger against Christine, some activists alleged. Protesters were outraged by how they were treated, and Mr. Siegels presence outside the controversial NYU debate served to underscore his important role in New York. Mr. Siegel was running for office of public advocate that year, and in the middle of his own campaign, he was taking time off to help activists. His legal brilliance and his effort to help activists, though a source of hope for those fighting to bring about government reforms, were not enough to help him win his race. He lost to Mr. de Blasio, one of Christines old foes. Since Ms. Kurland was a vegan and an animal rights activist, other animal rights activists were attracted to support her candidacy. These animal rights activists were also spurred on by Christines support for the horse carriage industry, a business which animal rights activists viewed as exploitative of animals.495 To other activists, Christine had become reminiscent of Carol Greitzer, the long-term, do-nothing incumbent councilmember, who had been targeted to be voted out of office by a series of three different gay politicians, first Jim Owles, then David Rothenberg, and finally by Tom Duane. To still yet other activists, Ms. Derrs appearance on that years Democratic primary ticket was meant to split votes away from Ms. Kurlands chances at defeating Christine, and that was exactly what
494 http://youtu.be/OmWXpj20_-c 495 http://thevillager.com/villager_332/quinopponents.html
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happened : Ms. Derr acted to ruin Ms. Kurlands insurgent campaign. Christine barely won reelection : she took about 52% of the vote, Ms. Kurland won 31%, and Ms. Derr was left with 16%,496 showing that Ms. Derr was a marginal candidate, who acted as Ms. Kurlands spoiler. In her concession speech, Ms. Kurland spoke about the political pressure that opposed her candidacy, noting that she had been told by insiders, that you dont go against incumbents, that you cant question authority when it becomes dysfunctional. People were afraid to stand up to Christine Quinn, and we showed the entire district, and we showed the entire city, that the numbers show that this district is not happy with their leadership. Ms. Kurland added, Every time there is development that happens without affordable housing, theres deals that are made that succumb to big business and developers and to money, we will be here, we will be watching. We are organized, we have power -- this is just the beginning.497 For the 2009 race, Christine raised about $2 million in donations, of which she had to set aside almost $1.8 million in donations for a future race,498 so that she would not violate Campaign Finance Board rules for the spending cap under its matching funds program. Christine had raised these millions in anticipation that she would have been running for mayor that year, before the slush fund scandal and Mayor Bloombergs thwarted presidential run scuttled her plans. Besides the substantial political contributions from real estate interests, even those receiving

498
496 http://thevillager.com/villager_333/weshowedthem.html 497 http://thevillager.com/villager_333/weshowedthem.html
http://www.nyccfb.info/searchabledb/AdvancedContributionSearchResult.aspx?ec_id=2013&ec=2013&RecTyp =Candidates+only&RecTyp_id=Can&cand_id=204&cand=Quinn%2c+Christine+C
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discretionary funding from City Council,499 Christine also received $200.00 from Daniel Alter, a controversial Wall Street banker, whose nomination to the federal bench by Sen. Chuck Schumer was rejected by the Obama administration after it was learned that, among other reasons, Mr. Alter appeared to oppose the use of the phrase under God in the Pledge of Allegiance.500 Because Christine was a proud Irish Catholic, its not known why she kept Mr. Alters donation. Other reliable supporters, like Kenneth Monteiro, Laura Morrison, and Richard Socarides, donated to Christines campaign. Michael Cormier, a nurse at St. Vincents, had donated $25.00 to Christines campaign before the hospital closed. Anne Washburn, Ms. Giskes girlfriend, donated $100.00 to Christines campaign. Ms. Washburn was head of a business group in the Meatpacking District of the West Village, which stood to benefit from the High Line park project.501 Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg was forced to spend over $109 million of his own money in declared political campaign expenditures for his re-election effort in 2009 to overcome widespread voter anger over the overturning of term limits in a campaign that was later beset by criminal charges502 and a review of his campaign finances.503 He faced Comptroller Bill Thompson as the Democratic candidate in that years general election race. To win, many political insiders noted that Mayor Bloomberg had to make millions in undeclared charitable donations from his
499 http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/city-politicians-received-big-campaign-donations-funneled-tax-
dollars-developers-article-1.426728 500 http://perezhilton.com/2010-10-22-white-house-rejects-new-york-senator-chuck-schumers- reccomendation-that-openly-gay-daniel-alter-serve-on-the-us-district-court#sthash.S1jKZrnm.dpbs 501 http://www.nyccfb.info/searchabledb/AdvancedContributionSearchResult.aspx?ec_id=2009&ec=2009&RecTyp =Candidates+only&RecTyp_id=Can&cand_id=204&cand=Quinn%2c+Christine+C 502 http://observer.com/2010/08/the-secret-campaign-of-mayor-mike/ 503 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/19/nyregion/campaign-finance-board-rebukes-but-does-not-punish- bloomberg.html
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personal fortune to community groups and non-profits in order to demobilize active, civic-minded leaders, who could have organized against the mayor on the term limits issue. When the City Council held hearings on the term limits change, mayoral aides asked organizations on the receiving end of his generosity to testify in favor, reported Tom Robbins in The New York Post.504 One such group that received large charitable contributions from Mayor Bloomberg in what appeared to be a quid pro quo for support on extending term limits was the Doe Fund, a homeless assistance group. Aside from charitable donations, the Doe Fund also received from the Bloomberg administration city contracts worth tens of millions of dollars, The New York Times reported.505 Dozens of people, who depended on Doe Fund shelters, were bused to the City Council hearing on overturning term limits to pack the room in support of Mayor Bloomberg.506 That Mayor Bloomberg was so desperate for support from homeless groups belied the fact that he had been behind a policy that rounded up the homeless since 2007 and had them deported to other states.507 Such were Mayor Bloombergs political reversal of fortune. Mayor Bloombergs use of community groups that received taxpayer money was a powerful way to triangulate support from civic leaders for a politicians agenda, a template for authority that we saw resembled how officials connected with the High Line park project had donated over $50,000.00 in campaign contributions to Christines political accounts, as one investigation showed. Meanwhile, Ms. Kurlands insurgent campaign against Christine in 2009 was a rarity
504 http://nypost.com/2013/06/23/ilence-was-golden/ 505 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/nyregion/07doe.html 506 http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2008/10/doe-a-dear-for-bloomberg.html 507 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/nyregion/29oneway.html
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in New York City politics : it was a sign that Christines abuse of incumbency privileges and violations of her public duty had stirred up passionate dissent to such a degree that a community organizer would openly question Christines leadership. Furthermore, even after Christine was safely reelected to the City Council, she briefly faced questions whether her peers would select her again to serve as speaker, given the voter outrage stemming from the overturning of term limits.508 While Christine was left scrambling to save her hold on power, Mayor Bloomberg rewarded his campaign staff with outsized bonuses and job offerings.509 Additionally, Ms. Kurlands promise to be here if a zone-busting real estate development would disrupt the West Village would predict an escalation of community organizing against Christine and her political career. Between the end of 2009 and the beginning of 2010, St. Vincents Hospital in Christines City Council district was facing financial difficulty. It laid off almost 180 employees a few weeks before Christmas in 2009, after the election, as a result of, among other reasons, a series of state budget cuts.510 Even though there had been budget surpluses at the municipal level in recent years, the state budget cuts were taking a toll. St. Vincents Hospital was not meant to be closed under the Berger Commission Report, and the hospital had been in talks with a real estate developer to help shore up the hospitals finances.511 Once Christine had been safely resworn into office, Mr. Finnegan, the 1199 political director, said, It would be outrageous for the state to even entertain offers to close the only hospital that services
508 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/angry-voters-whittle-speaker-christine-quinn-power-base-article-
1.405796 509 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/nyregion/27hiring.html 510 http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/st-vincents-to-lay-off-180-employees/ 511 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/nyregion/08hospital.html
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hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who work or live on the West Side of Manhattan below 59th Street.512 But two months later, a proposed sale of St. Vincents to another Manhattan hospital, Mount Sinai Medical Center, mysteriously fell through, and another hospital operator, Continuum Health Partners, had expressed no interest in maintaining a full-service hospital on the site of St. Vincents.513 It had become apparent that state health officials were going to do nothing to save St. Vincents. This vacuum of leadership was complicated by the fact that as Christines constituents looked onto her to lead the charge to save St. Vincents, she had an apparent conflict of interest in the matter. Christine had accepted almost $30,000.00 in campaign contributions by the wealthy family that controlled the real estate developer, Rudin Management Company.514 A development deal struck by St. Vincents in the shadow of a previous bankruptcy had given Rudin an edge in buying some of the buildings comprising the St. Vincents campus,515 and the hospitals second bankruptcy, in 2010, acted to make Rudins prior development deal into a more lucrative opportunity for outsized profits.516 Since Christine was conflicted, she would initially go through the motions to put on an appearance of trying to save St. Vincents, but she could not realistically follow through on delivering a true rescue package for St. Vincents out of fear of angering an important political
514 512 http://nypost.com/2010/01/26/code-red-looms-for-st-vinnys/ 513 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/02/nyregion/02hospital.html
http://www.nyccfb.info/searchabledb/AdvancedContributionSearchResult.aspx?ec_id=2013&ec=2013&RecTyp =Candidates+only&RecTyp_id=Can&cand_id=204&cand=Quinn%2c+Christine+C&emp=rudin+management+(b egins+with)&emp_name1=rudin+management&emp_exact1=B 515 http://therealdeal.com/blog/2011/11/07/stribling-and-associates-opens-sales-office-at-william-rudin-s- condo-conversion-near-saint-vincent-hospital/ 516 http://www.cityrealty.com/nyc/real-estate/carters-view/rudin-management-reportedly-negotiating-lower- price-st-vincents-properties/36122
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supporter and powerful real estate developer. Neither nor would she recuse herself from the process. As promised by Ms. Kurlands pledge to be here if a zone-busting real estate development would disrupt the West Village, the community began to organize anew against Christine. This was only mere months after Christines shaky reelection win over Ms. Kurland. Generally, powerful real estate developers get exactly what they want in New York City. Proposed affordable housing regulations either get watered down into low-cost loan packages or the responsibility for building affordable housing gets transferred from developers to city taxpayers. In the case of a large development project in Brooklyn known as Atlantic Yards, which would lead to the construction of another sports stadium, the Barclays Center, grass roots activists spent years fighting the system to only lose.517 Their loss was hastened by the fact that some community groups actually sided with the developer. One of those community groups was ACORN, which was headed by Bertha Lewis at the time.518 ACORN helped to negotiate an accord with developers that would require developers to provide affordable housing, job training and other benefits, according to WNYC.519 Responsibility for enforcing compromises struck between activists and developers, sometimes known as community benefits agreements, fell on politicians, which was a trap, because politicians lacked the courage to challenge developers,520 because, as seen, developers made large campaign contributions to politicians. Ms. Lewis, who was described as a housing advocate, and similar to the
517 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/26/nyregion/exhausted-from-an-angry-and-losing-battle-against-
barclays-center.html 518 http://www.wnyc.org/story/316327-de-blasios-support-atlantic-yards-helped-old-ally/ 519 http://www.wnyc.org/story/316327-de-blasios-support-atlantic-yards-helped-old-ally/ 520 http://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com/2013/08/what-is-he-chopped-liver-bill-de.html
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controversial housing advocate Michael McKee, Ms. Lewis provided political cover to the lopsided victory enjoyed by the developer, which in this case was Forest City Ratner, one of Christines campaign donors. Forest City Ratner was allowed to use eminent domain to confiscate property for the project.521 Ms. Lewis had close ties to the Working Families Party and to Mr. de Blasio, the newly-elected public advocate.522 Developers had become shrewd in weakening political oversight by making large campaign donations to compromise the independence of political leaders. Developers knew that they could wear down activists energy and morale, and they knew how to divide the community by finding community groups that would sell out on their principles, thereby giving developers political cover to win approval for their zone-busting deals. To help achieve the developers goal, Christine began to telegraph a sensibility of resignation to her constituents, that they should just give in, because the developer had already won. For example, in late 2007, Christine was asked at a community meeting what could be done to stop the Atlantic Yards project. She replied, I think theres not a lot thats left to be done and that the project will be getting developed.523 Christine finally revealed that she was no longer capable of being a beacon of top-down support for bottom-up community empowerment. At long last, she was openly disempowering and demobilizing the community. It was exactly what developers expected from Christine. At that same 2007 community meeting, WCBS-TV political reporter Andrew Kirtzman conducted a brief interview
521 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/nyregion/22yards.html 522 http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/359265/radicalism-bill-de-blasio-stanley-kurtz 523 http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2007/11/_politicians_on.php
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with Christine, and he frankly asked her to explain the contradictions between Christines early years as an activist with her insider status as City Council speaker. Do you find yourself having to balance where you come from with where you are now ? Christine replied, You do think about things through bigger prisms when youre in this position, skirting any direct accountability to her constituents for the conservative shift in her policies. 524 The public advocate of New York City is a fallback political office given to voters in case other elected officials became conflicted, turned out to be duds, or were otherwise ineffectual about championing causes on behalf of voters. The public advocate runs for office in a city-wide campaign every four years, and the officeholder is supposed to be a government watchdog, who would fight against government failures. Mr. de Blasios predecessor, Betsy Gotbaum, saw the budget of her government office cut by 40% in the city budget for Fiscal Year 2010, which Mr. de Blasio inherited, because Ms. Gotbaum opposed the Bloomberg-Quinn plan to extend term limits.525 Ms. Gotbaums experience with the political payback orchestrated by Mayor Bloomberg and Christine infuriated her, and it set the tone that nobody could question the didactic policies of the mayor and the speaker, even when, as Ms. Gotbaum put it, it amounted to actions that were anti-democratic, bad government and politics at its worst.526 Moreover, The New York Times reported that the motivation for the budget cuts to the public advocates office were being made a few months before the 2009 municipal election cycle in order to deliberately
524 http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2007/11/_politicians_on.php 525 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/20/nyregion/20advocate.html 526 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/20/nyregion/20advocate.html
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weaken the next public advocate, who at the time was speculated to be Mark Green,527 but eventually became Mr. de Blasio. One could also see how the advocacy of the civil rights attorney Norman Siegel might worry entrenched political interests, given Mr. Siegels propensity to challenge powerholders, like Christine. The size and timing of the budget cut was intended to telegraph to the next public advocate that the mayor and the speaker had the power to squash the independence of the public advocates role in overseeing the city government. The natural consequence of the budgetary action was that Mr. de Blasio was largely absent from the public discourse over controversial issues, such as the fight to save hospitals, particularly St. Vincents. Mr. de Blasio may have started out his campaign for public advocate with good intentions, but by the time he got into office, Mr. de Blasio never really challenged the mayor or Christine in the first three years. No matter that some developers, the mayor, and even Christine had learned to game the system, the fight over St. Vincents was turning into something different. It wasnt the same as the previous other struggles to save community hospitals. These activists werent about to go away quietly, even if their public advocate had. The West Village and Chelsea, some of the neighborhoods served by St. Vincents, were home to a particular brand of political sensibility. It was where activists and writers, such as Jane Jacobs, Larry Kramer, David B. Feinberg, David Rothenberg and many others, had helped to shape a political awareness for community organizing to resist irresponsible over development and government failure. Ms. Jacobs would go on to achieve world-wide acclaim for her efforts to
527 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/20/nyregion/20advocate.html
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preserve the special social fabric of Lower Manhattan from the destructive forces of Robert Moses, a reckless city planner who bulldozed neighborhoods in favor of building expressways. As Christines sound bites on St. Vincents were shown to be mere lip service, the community had begun to see through her pattern of never following up on any of her promises. At a town hall meeting before St. Vincents closed, for example, Christine said that St. Vincents deserved a bailout like the banks were getting.528 She left out that she was the one, who had the bailout funds available, but she was using those funds to reward political allies. At that town hall meeting, she said : I fail to accept that, in all of New York, there is no other healthcare institution that wants to merge with the great St. Vincents. I simply do not believe it. The State Department of Health wants us to believe it, because they have created an equation where that is the only answer that we would get. We are not going to fall for that bait-and- switch. Were not going to fall for this trick that Continuum is the only entity out there. Were going to say tonight, and were going to say it over and over again : the only plan that should be considered or ever approved by the state is one that keeps our hospital and our emergency room.529 St. Vincents was renowned for the care it provided to the survivors of the Titanic sinking, the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, the first cases of HIV/AIDS, and the two attacks on the World Trade Center. It was trusted for its trauma care almost as much as the sentimental value of knowing that the hospital had bore witness to some of the darkest episodes in New York Citys history, and it had treated and saved the lives of untold people during these emergencies. With word spreading that the hospital was facing possible closure, registered nurses with the union New York
528 http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_354/hospitaldeserves.html 529 http://youtu.be/MJFSBvyfQU8
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State Nurses Association (NYSNA), doctors, and other hospital staff organized several protests to mobilize the community. At a town hall at a local church, several hundred showed up, including Christine, but the community did not come together enough to pressure politicians to own up to their public duty to save St. Vincents. There was a lot of talk, but no commitments. At the end of one protest march through Chelsea that ended in front of the hospital, Christine tried to speak, but she was drowned out by angry protesters, who accused her of being a sellout.530 People were now on to Christines game of double-talk. During a radio interview, Christine was accused of not doing enough to save St. Vincents.531 Word on the street was that Rudin Management Company, the real estate developer with plans to convert the St. Vincents campus into luxury housing, was still trying to salvage its condo conversion plan,532 outraging St. Vincents employees and activists, who were focused instead on trying to save the hospital. On the day St. Vincents closed, another emergency town hall was held at Hudson Guild in Chelsea. Community members were scorching mad. The hospital had closed its doors, and they knew that Rudin was only focused on the million dollar views available from the St. Vincents location.533 Assemblymember Richard Gottfried and Sen. Duane appeared at the town hall, but Mayor Bloomberg and Christine were no-shows, and their absence from the town hall was criticized by the community.534 Assemblymember Gottfried mentioned a failed state effort to help stop the wave of hospital closings. A bill introduced in the legislature that would
530 http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/300-angry-protesters-march-st-vincent-hospital-article-1.165507 531 http://www.wnyc.org/story/32495-st-vincents/ 532 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/nyregion/16vincents.html 533 http://youtu.be/2C8fIhXv6gE 534 http://youtu.be/ZFc1_VaCTP8
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have required public hearings before hospitals could be closed was vetoed by Gov. Patterson, 535 allowing the Berger Commission hospital closings to proceed undeterred.536 537 Both Assemblymember Gottfried and Sen. Duane were chairs of the respective health committees of each house of the state legislature, but neither one of them used their power or influence up in the state capitol to save St. Vincents. Albanys intent became clear, and everybody asked why didnt City Hall or City Council officials step up and appropriate the kind of emergency money needed to save St. Vincents. At a time when these politicians traded on their sensibilities about advocating for fairness, constituents were not used to mobilizing to put pressure on their elected officials. There was no organizational structure to do that. The nursing union NYSNA led the communitys response, paying to broadcast radio advertisements to mobilize the public, according to one source. To form an independent pressure group to fight to restore a hospital to replace St. Vincents, the community rallied around the only person in the West Village and Chelsea, who had shown she had the guts to take on the system -- the attorney Yetta Kurland, who had nearly defeated Christine only a few months prior to the closing of St. Vincents. At the town hall at Hudson Guild, Ms. Kurland presented information, which raised questions about that integrity of the management at St. Vincents. The hospital closing triggered a fraud investigation, but no charges were ever brought.538 After the political and management failures that led to the closing of St. Vincents, the community learned that that state health officials were going to
535 http://youtu.be/ZFc1_VaCTP8 536 http://www.cityandstateny.com/facing-st-vincents-closure-manhattan-pols-have-change-of-heart-on-
hospital-closure-bill/ 537 http://youtu.be/ZFc1_VaCTP8 538 http://nypost.com/2011/08/21/da-eyes-st-vinnys-go-for-broke-plan/
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propose an urgent care center to replace the full-service hospital and Level I trauma center services that St. Vincents once provided. Christines previous sound bite of We are not going to fall for that bait-and-switch, was, in fact, going to lead to a bait-and-switch. To some, it sounded like Christine was saying that it was time to give up, like she had once told activists opposed to the Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn. Eileen Dunn, a veteran nurse of 24 years, who had organized many protests in the weeks before St. Vincents closed, said at the town hall at Hudson Guild that the community needed to organize and not accept inferior healthcare facilities. Urgent care is not emergency care, she said at the town hall, adding, You need a revolution downtown, urging, You need to be out in the streets. You need to stop the traffic. You need to let the politicians know that it is just not good enough.539 Nurse Dunns remarks were a call-to-action that helped the community scrutinize the political failures that led to the closing of St. Vincents, and some of that scrutiny would come to focus on Christine. As a public official, Christine had a public duty to take actions on behalf of her constituents, but she did not, and her violation of this duty would drive the community to withdraw their political support for Christine. In The New York Times article that prefaced the closing of St. Vincents, Christine was already calling for urgent care to replace St. Vincents.540 The deliberate use of urgent care was meant to communicate to the community that Christine was no longer going to fight for a full-service hospital to replace St. Vincents. She had moved the goal post. To some, her latest statement was an effort to corral the
539 http://youtu.be/CR5LPVLCFLE 540 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/nyregion/07vincents.html
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community into accepting an inferior healthcare facility in a political bait-and- switch. Up until the closing of St. Vincents, it appeared that Christine had been able to master her close relationship with Mayor Bloomberg and still maintain the myth that she was the communitys advocate. In one press report from around that time, Christine talked up the fact that New York City had the best hospitals, but she always stayed clear of the fact that there was an effort to close many city hospitals.541 However, there was only so long that she could trick voters with her duplicity. Dr. David Kaufman, a former physician at St. Vincents, said at the town hall meeting that he had growing concerns over the impact of hospital closings on the delivery of life-saving trauma care. I guarantee you, absolutely, that people will die, he said, adding, I challenge the politicians in New York -- Quinn, everybody, the governor, the famous Commissioner Daines -- I challenge them to publicly log the ambulance times from the Lower West Side and the outcomes from those runs.542 Richard Daines was the controversial state health commissioner at the time, and he had asserted that straitened times put healthy pressure on providers to tighten their operations.543 Dr. Dainess position was that he would not step forward to save any hospitals. Barely two months after the closing of St. Vincents Hospital in Greenwich Village, North General Hospital, a potent symbol of the citys political and philanthropic commitment to Harlem, announced Monday that it was declaring
541
http://www.nypost.com/f/print/news/local/behind_closed_doors_with_the_mighty_VPqhPZj9O9JJrrGxeMx05K 542 http://youtu.be/-Kh1NYAHvOM 543 http://nymag.com/news/features/68991/
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bankruptcy, wrote Anemona Hartocollis in The New York Times.544 No matter how unpopular or dangerous to public health, the top-down Berger Commission order to close hospitals to make indiscriminate cuts to the Medicaid program proceeded, unabated, the people be damned. Complicating matters for the St. Vincents activists was that they shared a sentiment that the special social fabric of communities were coming under attack by the Berger Commission, and they believed that the press should have been able to portray the closings of hospital as a story of how the safety net was being shredded. But if communities were expecting sympathy from the press, they would rarely receive it. Community efforts to save hospitals would never be fairly portrayed by Ms. Hartocollis in The New York Times, for example, because she had already developed a bias against struggling hospitals, believing that saving hospitals was tantamount to throwing good money after bad. 545 Ms. Hartocolliss personal opinion essentially became the editorial opinion of The New York Times. Late in the fall of 2010, Long Island College Hospital, also known as LICH, was saved from closure by acts from Gov. Patterson, which spun off the Brooklyn hospital from Continuum Health Partners, the hospital operator which had passed on acquiring St. Vincents. Continuum had previously managed LICH, and Gov. Patterson decided to merge LICH with the State University of New York. To save LICH, Gov. Patterson provided a $40 million state grant to the newly formed structure. 546 Apparently, there was money available to save hospitals, and the pressure to save LICH was a sign that communities were now organizing against the
544 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/nyregion/29hospital.html 545 http://www.wnyc.org/story/32495-st-vincents/ 546 http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/shutter-long-island-college-hospital-fuhgeddaboudit-
suny-article-1.189533
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Berger Commission closings. Before that years state elections, some St. Vincents activists met with Andrew Cuomos gubernatorial campaign operatives to press the need for a hospital to replace St. Vincents, but Cuomo campaign officials told the activists, Well see you after the election.547 Within days of having been sworn into office, Gov. Cuomo formed another task force to carry out more hospital closings.548 He called the task force the Medicaid Redesign Team, shades of the propagandized name of a former task force with a similar aim, the Health Care Facilities in the 21st Century. The Medicaid Redesign Team was co-chaired by Michael Dowling, the CEO of the North Shore-LIJ hospital system.549 In spite of Gov. Cuomos renewed efforts to carry out an austerity program against Medicaid by targeting hospitals for closure, healthcare professionals and activists had managed to find a way to use pressure politics against his predecessor, former Gov. Patterson, to save LICH. The use of pressure politics mounted when four activists were arrested on February 8, 2011, after they staged a sit-in at the then shuttered St. Vincents.550 There was a growing sensibility that politicians favoring the continued closure of hospitals were on shaky ground. Against these opposing forces, it was identified that half of Brooklyn hospitals were in financial trouble,551 and the Medicaid Redesign Team formed a subgroup chaired by the same Wall Street banker Stephen Berger, who was behind the Berger Commission Report. Once again, Mr. Berger was tasked with closing

547 http://youtu.be/_c4YhPXqeVo 548 http://www.health.ny.gov/health_care/medicaid/redesign/ 549 http://www.hanys.org/mrt/docs/2011_1_12_mrt_overview_slides.pdf 550 http://youtu.be/qcToWCh5VhU 551 http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20110605/FREE/306059979
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more hospitals, this time in Brooklyn.552 As St. Vincents activists continued to agitate against politicians, it was announced that the urgent care center, that would be forced onto the former patients of St. Vincents, would be operated by the North Shore-LIJ hospital system. At a community board meeting chaired by Brad Hoylman, Christines long time political supporter, the community learned that North Shore- LIJ was going to receive valuable real estate from the St. Vincents bankruptcy estate for free in order to open and operate the inferior urgent care center.553 It appeared to some activists that the co-chair of Gov. Cuomos Medicaid Redesign Team was seizing on the healthcare vacuum caused by the closing of St. Vincents to make money. Indeed, North Shore-LIJ received a special grant of $9.4 million to operate an urgent care center near St. Vincents,554 but that urgent care center eventually closed, because the community refused to use an inferior facility that could not provide emergency or trauma care services.555 Mmissing in action through all this was Christine, who was deliberately avoiding the issue of St. Vincents. While Christine was saying that there was no money available to save St. Vincents from closing, it was revealed that she was providing discretionary capital taxpayer money to Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center for two years in a row. 556 Kingsbrook was one of the few Brooklyn hospitals that was not in danger of closing,557 and it was unknown what role taxpayer money had in propping up
553 http://youtu.be/_c4YhPXqeVo 554
552 http://www.health.ny.gov/health_care/medicaid/redesign/brooklyn.htm
http://aaucm.org/about/mediacenter/aaucminthenews/NewsDetail.aspx?a=2761&ReturnUrl=%2Fnews%2Fn ewslist.aspx%3Fcategoryid%3D164 555 http://libn.com/2012/07/17/north-shore-lij-closes-nyc-urgent-care-center/ 556 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/nyregion/for-speaker-quinn-mayor-race-will-test-alliance-with- lobbyist.html 557 http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20110605/FREE/306059979
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Kingsbrook. (Even though Christine claimed she had reformed discretionary funding by making payments transparent online, no payments to Kingsbrook were found on the New York City government Web site.)558 Meanwhile, St. Vincents activists continued to find every which way to bring attention to the fact that communities needed the hospitals that were recklessly being closed under the influence of the old Berger Commission and now the new Medicaid Redesign Team. In particular, activists charged that the appearance of a conflict of interest caused by Christines loyalty to developers and the political shortsightedness of other elected officials increased the risks to public health. Not only was Mr. Berger the head of a Wall Street investment firm, but he was also a board member of the Partnership For New York City, the chamber of commerce-like group where one of Christines supporters, Brad Hoylman, served as general counsel. Mr. Hoylman was a campaign contributor of Christines, and he was also a link that she never used in her failed effort to negotiate with MetLife over its doomed sale of Stuy-Town and Peter Cooper. In respect of St. Vincents, Mr. Hoylman was also chair of a community board at the time when the board would decide on the Rudin zone-busting application to convert St. Vincents into a billion- dollar luxury condo and townhouse complex. In spite of his apparent conflict of interest, Mr. Hoylman never recused himself from the process. Bill Rudin, the head of the real estate development firm that bore his family name, was also a director of the Partnership For New York City. Members of the Rudin family collectively

558 http://council.nyc.gov/html/budget/database.shtml
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contributed about $30,000.00 in campaign contributions to Christine,559 and activists claimed that the entire zoning review of the Rudin luxury condo conversion plan was rife with conflicts of interest. The Partnership For New York City worked to advance the business interests of its members, and it appeared to activists that perhaps Christine, Mr. Berger, and Mr. Hoylman were expected to help support Mr. Rudins business goals -- and not the best interests of the former patients of St. Vincents. Adding to the impression that the Partnership For New York City was taking political action to help the Rudin condo conversion plan was that Christine was benefiting from sound bites from the Partnerships CEO, Kathryn Wylde. While constituents had become emboldened to challenge Christine, Ms. Wylde was now providing Christine with political cover. In a strategically placed article published by The New York Times, it was announced that Christine was attempting to distance herself from Mayor Bloomberg, especially after the controversial extension of term limits. In that article, Ms. Wylde made a statement, which was interpreted to be affirming of Christines efforts to support the big business interests that Mayor Bloomberg had championed during his mayoralty. The way she has handled the speakership, and issues that are important to the business community, make her a favored candidate to succeed the mayor, Ms. Wylde told the reporter Michael Barbaro.560 In another article, placed into The New York Post, Ms. Wylde said, Shes direct, smart and makes decisions based on facts rather than politics.561 Ms. Wylde was telegraphing that if Christine wanted to
559 http://www.scribd.com/doc/166192441/2007-XX-XX-Rudin-Management-Company-Polication-Donations-
to-Christine-Quinn-Advanced-Search-New-York-City-Campaign-Finance-Board 560 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/nyregion/07quinn.html 561 http://nypost.com/2010/11/14/behind-closed-doors-with-the-mighty-quinn/
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run for mayor in the next election cycle with the support of Mayor Bloombergs powerful big business interests, then Christine had to adopt a big business agenda. That meant that Christine could not advocate to save hospitals, and if Christine stayed this course, then she could count on the political support of big business interests. All of a sudden, the big business interests that had always supported Christine behind the scenes were willing to come forward and openly express their support for her, in order to shore up her public standing, even if this kind of support was a blatant contradiction of Christines whole raison dtre. The article in The New York Post came out and pointed out this contradiction without using the term neoliberalism : Despite her liberal background, shes also become a darling of the business community. Her votes have tended to be conservative on economic issues and liberal on social ones. Christine had been forced to postpone her 2009 run for mayor, because of her slush fund scandal and Mayor Bloombergs doomed presidential exploration. Now, she was being pressured by big business interests to fully sell out her constituents in favor of political support from the business community in anticipation for her next opportunity to run for mayor. Christine was caught between two opposing forces at a time in her career when she wanted to escape the pressures of the voter anger over her slush fund, the extension of term limits, the protest permit law, her role in the collapse of affordable housing, the budget cuts to people with HIV/AIDS, and now the closing of St. Vincents. It seemed like she couldnt win. She was trying to distance herself from Mayor Bloomberg, but, to some, her attempts were already seen as too little, too late. Even The New York
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Times, her biggest cheerleader in the media, was warning Christine that the growing impression people had of her was Bloomberg Lite.562 How did Christine end up in this mess ? In the 1960s, the Village Independent Democrats, a Democratic political club based in Greenwich Village, successfully organized an effort to vote out of office a powerful Tammany Hall political boss, Carmine DeSapio.563 Mr. DeSapio was described as the last political boss from the corrupt Tammany Hall era. Although a large undertaking, voting Mr. DeSapio out of office was made possible because activists developed a strategy, found allies, and took sustained action. Mr. DeSapio lost his post as a district leader in Manhattan in 1961 after Democrats had finally soured on Mr. DeSapios controversial record. He had accumulated so much power that he was able to name political candidates, it was said that he tolerated corruption, and he had a pattern of hiring political hacks for city jobs. Mr. DeSapio attracted scrutiny, because people, who were allegedly engaged in corrupt rackets, approached government officials to seek protection from police raids. In an apparent exchange, it was alleged that government officials received favors from the people running alleged corrupt rackets. 564 The Village Independent Democrats, the political club that had organized for years to defeat Mr. DeSapio, was the very club Christine had offended in the time leading up to her first special election to the City Council, back in February 1999. At the time, Hal Friedman, the club president, had
562 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/nyregion/07quinn.html 563 http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_198/de_198/theclubthat.html 564 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/28/nyregion/carmine-de-sapio-political-kingmaker-and-last-tammany-
hall-boss-dies-at-95.html
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said of Christine, Shes beginning to act like a Tammany hack.565 There were warning signs about Christines commitment to progressive ideals all the way back in 1999. Now that activists had been prompted to review Christines record of betrayals and failures, activists began to question Christines political mandate. But political bossism was not on anybodys minds on September 11, 2011, when New Yorkers commemorated the tenth anniversary of the attacks. The city was subdued, demobilized, and without a clear plan for bringing about progressive reforms. That week, Christine was trying to downplay outrage at the NYPDs use of handcuffs to detain Councilmember Jumaane Williams and a member of the public advocates staff, Kirsten John Foy. Their detention was seen by some to be racially motivated,566 and Christine refused to address a controversial police policy known as stop-and-frisk, which was receiving bad press and had become the subject of a class-action discrimination lawsuit.567 Typical of Christine, she was using double- speak by denouncing the police use of handcuffs to detain the city officials but refusing to address concerns about racism. Also happening that week, activists, who had fought to save St. Vincents from closing, had noticeably shifted their goal and unified around an effort to preserve the zoning on its former campus for a replacement hospital. Some of the St. Vincents activists were seeking a larger strategy to protect public health in New York City. Because the developer Rudin was outspending activists and employing teams of lobbyists, including Melanie Meyers and James Capalino, the St. Vincents activists were seeking more daring allies --
565 http://observer.com/1999/06/christine-quinn-sets-it-straight-im-a-lesbian-yup-100-percent/ 566 http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20110911/SUB/309119980 567 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/01/lawsuit-nypds-stopandfris_n_944718.html
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people with a sustained vision for activism, which could be escalated. At a community board meeting held on September 15, 2011, St. Vincents activists heard Ms. Meyers say that Rudin developers planned to bust through zoning after they demolished St. Vincents in favor of a massive, billion-dollar luxury condominium and townhouse complex.568 Activists were outraged that developers could ride roughshod over an important underpinning to public health, and right out in Christines very own City Council district. Meanwhile, Christine did not join activists efforts to fight for protective zoning or for a full-service replacement hospital, in spite of the palatable community demand for Christines help. Would Christine come to see that her constituents had developed the impression that a billionaire real estate empire had figuratively foreclosed on a 501(c)(3) public charity hospital to convert it into luxury condos for the private profit of developers ? Across New York City, healthcare and other activists were looking for help to fight back against a system that aimed to render them powerless. Three years after the start of the global financial crisis and recession, Wall Street banks were still getting bailed out while hospitals and schools were being closed, government budget cuts kept shredding the social safety net, and voters began to believe that they had lost any say in their own government. Even in times of budget surpluses, the tax structure seemed to favor the rich. Now, in the lingering aftermath of the financial crisis, income and wealth inequality was creating a city of haves and have-nots. On the morning of Saturday, September 17, 2011, New Yorkers would wake up to brisk temperatures in the 50s, and it would only warm up into the 60s
568 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5nHHbx8EZA
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that day. The early birds would go out for hot coffee and bagels. It was early in the autumnal season, but already a new chill had prematurely set in. A band of activists were launching that very day what would become a large and sustained protest movement targeting Wall Street privilege, income inequality, and government corruption. This time around, only the foolish were expecting just another day of business as usual.
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309 http://www.aclu.org/FilesPDFs/nyclu_arresting_protest1.pdf 310 http://www.aclu.org/FilesPDFs/nyclu_arresting_protest1.pdf 311 http://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=438748&GUID=26BD74EA-4658-48C3-B29E-

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article-1.1456256 486 http://www.ny1.com/content/news/94742/two-queens-hospitals-finally-shut-down/ 487 http://comptroller.nyc.gov/wp-content/uploads/documents/06-01-09_Hospital-closures-Policy-Alert-Jun- 1.pdf

496 http://thevillager.com/villager_333/weshowedthem.html 497 http://thevillager.com/villager_333/weshowedthem.html

1.405796 509 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/nyregion/27hiring.html 510 http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/st-vincents-to-lay-off-180-employees/ 511 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/nyregion/08hospital.html

barclays-center.html 518 http://www.wnyc.org/story/316327-de-blasios-support-atlantic-yards-helped-old-ally/ 519 http://www.wnyc.org/story/316327-de-blasios-support-atlantic-yards-helped-old-ally/ 520 http://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com/2013/08/what-is-he-chopped-liver-bill-de.html

hospital-closure-bill/ 537 http://youtu.be/ZFc1_VaCTP8 538 http://nypost.com/2011/08/21/da-eyes-st-vinnys-go-for-broke-plan/

http://www.nypost.com/f/print/news/local/behind_closed_doors_with_the_mighty_VPqhPZj9O9JJrrGxeMx05K 542 http://youtu.be/-Kh1NYAHvOM 543 http://nymag.com/news/features/68991/

to-Christine-Quinn-Advanced-Search-New-York-City-Campaign-Finance-Board 560 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/nyregion/07quinn.html 561 http://nypost.com/2010/11/14/behind-closed-doors-with-the-mighty-quinn/

562 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/nyregion/07quinn.html 563 http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_198/de_198/theclubthat.html 564 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/28/nyregion/carmine-de-sapio-political-kingmaker-and-last-tammany-

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